Consider that the people who have just the "hate" relationship with the name aren't sticking around.
I want to like DDG and I've switched to it from time to time, but the thing that always gets me is that I loathe the branding. I'm really, really sorry, about that and I appreciate what you're doing with DDG, and wish the branding didn't turn me off to a peculiar degree, but Google is such an easy choice and it doesn't get on my nerves.
I know that I'm an outlier in this, but I don't think it's altogether a completely impossible or uncommon reaction to be turned off by the name.
It's not about the name as an abstract concept, or as something you have to look at on the screen. It's saying it out loud that's the problem. It's a perfectly good symbol for representing the concept, but it's not a very good word for using. It's awkward.
I imagine it's easier to soften the Ks with an american accent. For an english person putting two of them in a row like that is just, shall we say, taking the piss.
Perhaps it's not specifically the glottal stop, but there is certainly some articulatory havoc going on when I try to say your search engine's name out loud. I have to bounce my tongue off the roof of my mouth twice in quick succession in a way that's never normally required and it feels quite unnatural.
(Google, on the other hand, is literally fun to say, even though it's a silly word, and hardly professional.)
I want to like DDG and I've switched to it from time to time, but the thing that always gets me is that I loathe the branding. I'm really, really sorry, about that and I appreciate what you're doing with DDG, and wish the branding didn't turn me off to a peculiar degree, but Google is such an easy choice and it doesn't get on my nerves.
I know that I'm an outlier in this, but I don't think it's altogether a completely impossible or uncommon reaction to be turned off by the name.