What’s in a name?

For AOL and Yahoo!, evidently it’s a window into their beleagured psyches.

The two Internet fogies have recently undertaken makeover projects with internal code names that expose their fragile corporate ids.

AOL has dubbed its corporate restructuring, which will result in a $100 million charge to cover the cost of laying off 2,500 employess, “Project Everest” — a symbolic reference to the massive mountain the company must climb to get back to the top.

It certainly says a lot about AOL’s mindset that it chose to name its restructuring effort after a mountain that few people have successfully climbed.

Meanwhile, Yahoo!, which has been trying to remake itself into a more open platform, launched a new effort to incorporate Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites into a content site called “Project Rushmore.”

But given Mount Rushmore features mugshots of former presidents carved into a mountain, Yahoo!’s chosen codename seems to suggest the company needs a facelift.

Maybe we’re being too psychoanalytical here, but perhaps Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and AOL boss Tim Armstrong need to pay Dr. Phil a visit.