Business Naming Basics

I’ve not been a raving fan of completely invented words as names for products or companies.
However, I do find some forms of coined names desirable.

Those are names which start from a root word that is relevant to the product, service or business being named. For instance, if you’re marketing a new telephone device, I can advocate a name using the root, “phone” or “fone”.

The reason, as I’ve stated previously, is that people don’t like new words. They are comfortable with the familiar. So to make a name with a familiar root and with some coined “flair” to go with it produces comfort, easy pronunciation and meaning almost instantly.

It’s providing the flair that makes the name unique, and possibly trademarkable.

Here’s another way to create that flair.

Start with a vowel-ending root

Let’s say you want to concentrate on four-letter names in the form consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel. You’d do that because the form provides a short, easily pronounced (in almost any language) and easily spelled name: just perfect if you’ll be looking for referrals. And of course, you’d want that four-letter root to be relevant to your naming project.

Here are three such words we can use as examples: rare, cape and mesa

Now you can try two different approaches to begin with.

Substituting ending vowels

First, substitute other vowels for the last vowel in each root word. This retains the four-letter cvcv format so pronouncing and spelling each will be easy even if the new words are unfamiliar. Here’s what I mean:

In the first two examples, where the last “e”s are silent, we’ve added a new syllable with the substitution, but really haven’t lengthened the name. With “Mesa”, we’ve just invented a new four-character words.

Adding an additional letter

In this example we’ll just add what looks like a random consonant or vowel to the end of our original root word. However, for the roots ending in a silent “e”, we won’t add “d”, “n”, “r”, “s” or “y” because these are common, meaningful add-ons already (rarer, caped, capes).

As with any naming approach, often times they bare no fruit, but every-so-often, a gem can appear, literally out of nowhere.

This technique will also work with multisyllabic words roots as well, and can be combined with other techniques (relevant prefixes and suffixes for instance) as I’ve outlined here in the past.

So just another weapon for your ever-growing naming arsenal. Use with gusto.

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How often has a name mislead you?

It happens to me quite often. Perhaps it’s because I take things quite literally. Or it could be the name just isn’t relevant to the product. Here are two quite different examples:

The fast-food chain Popeye’s offers Cajun-influenced food – dirty rice and such. Yet the first image that comes to mind for me is Popeye the Sailor Man, and “logically”, seafood.

I don’t know if younger people are even aware of Popeye from the comic strips and animated cartoons of years gone by. There are a couple of food associations for Popeye apart from the obvious seafood image: spinach, the source of Popeye’s strength; burgers eaten voraciously by his sidekick, Wimpy, and even olive oil, an alternate spelling of his girl friend’s name, Olive Oyl. But nowhere in the Popeye mythology is Cajun/Creole/Louisiana cuisine apparent.

So why was the Popeye name adopted? I have no idea, I would not have named the chain with what I feel was an irrelevant, even inappropriate, name.

In another context is the adaptation of the name Dove for chocolate treats. Even though they aren’t in the same product categories, the soap of that name can’t help but “rub off” on the chocolate bars and candies.

Eating soap brings to mind getting my mouth washed out with it after my mother heard me swear as a youngster. Both the soap and the candy are appealing in their own rights, and they’re both aiming at discerning, quality-oriented markets. I also think both are female-oriented. So perhaps only a literal-minded critic like me would think twice before adopting a name that’s been well-branded even in an entirely different product category. But I would certainly think twice or thrice before making such a recommendation.

My point with these examples is that, though they may be successful in their respective markets, I think less confusing, more unique names might have made them stronger still.

I’d like to hear what you think. I’d also wish you to share other examples of names that confuse you in one way or another. Because we learn from mistakes – but they needn’t always be our own mistakes.

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Quite often, parents name a child without considering the consequences.

My personal example: my parents, being of Dutch decent, named me Martin It was my grandfather’s name. Plus it meant “warlike” and came from the root, Mars.

So almost immediately upon entering grade school, the recess bullies began calling me “Fartin’ Martin”.

I hated my name. And once I got to high school, students and teachers alike wanted to shorten Martin to Marty. I hated Marty more than I hated Martin. Today, I like Martin very well, but Marty still alienates me.

Be careful what you name your child

And quite often, the name chosen by an entrepreneur will suffer the same fate at the hands of unthinking and uncaring stakeholders.

They’ll mispronounce, misspell and generally mess with it. If there’s a way to make it more “friendly” or informal, they will find it.

You will also note that people will want to shorten your name, particularly if that name contains three multisyllabic words. They’ll do that mostly by resorting to initials. Employees and even executives of companies with a long-worded name will resort to initials internally, and then those initials will begin to be used publically.

The shortening phenomenon is detrimental if you are trying to build a brand around the extended name.

Several companies have just gone with the flow and adopted shorter versions. The most significant and successful at this was Federal Express. They’re now just FedEx – and that works. But some have gone that way and the results, at least from a branding point of view, haven’t faired as well. Remember when Washington Mutual became WaMu?

The moral: Think like a seven-year-old bully

Think how a bully might contort your prized name – the one you’ll invest a pot of money and energy promoting. Think about how people will try to twist the name into a shorter, more irrelevant and irreverent nick name. How will they – including employees – want to make it easier to write or say as time goes by? Then ask others to find ways to mess withr your prime name candidates.

Make this part of your name evaluation checklist. Then perhaps chose a name that’s less likely to be corrupted.

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If you’re doing business on the web – generating leads, selling product or establishing an “authority” image – then you know the importance of generating relevant traffic.

And you know that search engines are a major source of relevant traffic. But unless you already own a well-known, top-of-mind company name, people don’t search for business names using Google, Yahoo or Bing. They use generic keywords to find the product or service they are researching or purchasing.

And the way you get recognized in a search engine is to be on their first page of results when people search for the keyword(s) that best describe their need or desire. Getting on the first page requires that you optimize your site by making it relevant using a host of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

Name as SEO component

A major characteristic of a web site for SEO is the domain name of the site. Thus, if your site’s domain name contains the keyword your prospects are using to find businesses relevant to yours, it stands to reason your position in the search engines will be higher than if your domain name does not include the searched keyword.

But keywords are usually descriptive and generic. And business names should not be descriptive and generic. Business names should be unique and memorable; at least businesses that aren’t exclusively web-based. So there’s the predicament: how do I have a relevant, searchable domain name and a unique, compelling business name?

Naming hierarchies answer the call

We are aware of the many companies that have multiple businesses and/or products. Each of those entities has a distinct name, and some of those brands will have products – line extensions – under them. Then many products will have branded characteristics or features as well. Within these companies a naming architecture, or hierarchy, has been established which brand managers adhere to when it’s time to name a new product, corporate division or, yes, a web site.

The answer to the dilemma of the domain vs business name is to treat the domain name as an association to the business brand. The domain name should be created with the major keyword as part of the name. The business has a more “people-appealing” name that differentiates and delivers a suggestion of the brand’s promise.

Real live example

You are reading a blog post at Business Naming Basics. I chose this name after doing my keyword research and found, not the most used keyword, but one I felt I could raise to the top of the Google rankings (first page). The site name and its contents are relevant to the search term.

But my business name is Signature Strategies. The company does create names for companies, and it also helps smaller businesses with brand strategy and management; graphic standards and trade dress; name, logo and tagline creation, and brand audits and positioning research. So naming is a subset of the business.

And because I derive much of my business from Internet contacts, I wanted a domain name that would attract relevant visitors to my web-site. Signature Strategies would not be that traffic-generator for the service of naming. Now I also have a Signature Strategies web site – www.signaturestrategies.com – where I also blog, but that site is not expected to get a lot of search engine traffic. Most of its visitors are folks who have read an article I’ve posted on the web, backlinks from other branding sites and my social networking activities.

Know what you’re naming and why

That’s the real message here. Before naming your business, or your web-site, or your product, or your new subsidiary, take the time to create a naming brief, one that gives you direction based on long-range goals and missions. This goes for anything you name in the future. It’s also a good idea to establish your brand architecture structure early on because if you don’t, in all likelihood you’ll have to backtrack – rename or rebrand parts of your business that tend to confuse customers and prospects.

So it’s best to begin with a brand platform (the structure that contains the brand hierarchy). You can find help in constructing the platform at Signature Strategies web-site. Then create a naming brief for each aspect of your business that needs a name, following the brand hierarchy you’ve already established.

Yes, there’s more to business naming than a brainstorming session and trademark search.

Tags: Name Management, Naming Strategies // 2 Comments »

Using place names as business names can be advantageous in some instances and almost suicidal in others.

But first, just what are geographic (aka place) names? Most obviously we’re talking about the names of cities, regions, counties, states and countries. We’re also alluding to geographic features such as the names of mountains, deserts, rivers, lakes, and oceans. On a more local level, we find the names of streets, neighborhoods and subdivisions are adopted for business names as well. And on a universal level, adopting the names of planets, stars and galaxies fall into this naming bucket as well. And, place names can have originated in myth and fiction, too

Your Atlas may be a fruitful souce of name candidates

This business naming post has to do with the pros and cons of using these names, and avoiding the pitfalls.

The pros of geographic names

Many geographic place names have established images in the minds of prospects because of their history, location or physical characteristics. These images can be transferred to the company or product named. If relevant, names evoking the old West, or exotic destinations can benefit from those existing images. They usually have stories connected to them – Casablanca, Cheyenne, Rushmore and Atlantis, for instance.

Note, too, that many place names were originally the names of people, so there is often a story connected to those people who were admired enough to have a place named after them. There are the usual suspects like Washington, Lincoln and Jackson, and there are the more obscure like Pontiac, Denver and Raleigh.

Also, many two-part geographical names will have as the second part a type of geographic feature – Lake, Park, Hill, Glen, Brook are examples. These are often combined with personal names as well.

It is also possible to “invent” new words that sound like place names. These will sound and feel familiar even though they are unique. And as long as they are just quirky enough to stand out, they can be memorable as well.

So, geographic business names can be associated with images or stories that conjure good feelings, that feel familiar and that are usually easy to remember, pronounce and spell.

The cons of place names

Have you ever looked for a business in the white pages of a telephone directory? If the name is common to the area, you may have a devil of a time finding the one you want. Fir instance, here in Denver, CO, businesses whose “first name” is Denver occupy 12 columns. Those beginning with Rocky Mountain take up 11 columns. Using the name of geographical places and features local to your business will lead to confusion and certainly doesn’t differentiate your firm. You’re lost in a sea of sameness.

There’s another reason for not naming your business by using local geography. What if you want to expand? That’s what happened to a laser clinic founded 60 miles north of Denver named Poudre Valley Laser. When they opened two Denver area offices, they felt they needed to change their name. They changed it to Colorado Laser Clinic. Sure hope they don’t open offices is Cheyenne or Provo any time soon.

Many entrepreneurs who have no plans of expanding believe a local name will endear them to local people, but I’ve found no reason to think people need to have a business named after their town to be convinced the business is local.

There is an exception to local naming. If the name is chosen because it represents the actual location of the business, the name then serves to give people directions to the firm. And if there aren’t too many people naming their companies with the same location, the name is somewhat unique. Again using Denver as an example, there’s a smart little mini-community occupying several blocks along Pearl Street, so the Pearl Street Café, or Pearl Street Fashions identifies both location and business type. If expansion is not a problem, those names make sense. (But if a lease is lost and the business must move, yes, there is a problem.

That reminds me of a true story, though I don’t know all the particulars. There used to be an annual conference and trade show named the Pittsburg Conference. But for many years it was held in Cleveland. I don’t know the reason they had to move from Pittsburg, but their solution – thought up by engineers no doubt – saved them money while giving participants something to laugh about.

What would INC500 companies do?

As you may know, I’ve analyzed the names of INC500’s Fastest Growing Companies over the past 12 years. I looked at the trends of geographic business names. Over that entire period, only four-percent of all names studied were geographic, and in the last year, just three-percent. Most of those had adopted a local geographical name. Just goes to show you that there’s more to success in business that a successful name.

Anyway, using your locale as part of your name is not a good idea. It exhibits no personality – in reality it’s just a generic name.

On the other hand, by adopting a non-local geographic name with some rich imagery, some rhythm, some psychological trigger, or some romantic story, you may have exactly what you want: a unique, memorable, emotion-evoking name.

Since so few companies have not adapted this naming practice, it may well be a fruitful approach to naming a business today. So get yourself an American Atlas, a World Atlas and an Atlas of the Ancient World.

Mind travel: That’s the ticket.

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Business naming and linguistics – plosives

Business naming can be as easy as having an “aha” moment, or as complicated as introducing the science of linguistics to the naming process and to name evaluation.

Linguistics is a study of language based upon how words are physically formed by vocal cords-lungs-pallet-tongue-lips. It has its own array of distinct definitions for various sounds and how they’re made. There are those who advocate a linguistic approach to naming a company of product, and particularly encourage the use of certain consonants labeled “plosives”.

Plosives burst from the mouth

Plosives are letters that when verbalized require three vocal actions (as described in Wikipedia):

Catch: The airway closes so that no air can escape through the mouth.
Hold or occlusion: The airway stays closed, causing a pressure difference to build.
Release or burst: The closure is opened. In the case of plosives, the released airflow produces a sudden impulse causing an audible sound (hence the name plosive).

The letters from English that meet those characteristics are: B, hard C, D, hard G, K, P and T.

Why are plosives encouraged?

First, they dominate other letters in the words in which they appear. They demand our attention when pronounced. This is particularly so when a plosive begins a word. So several naming companies suggest one criteria of a good name is whether it begins with a plosive. Two names are usually cited as good examples of strong brand names using plosives: Kodak and Coke. Other obvious examples: Die-Hard, Texaco, Pepsi, Brillo and Glade.

Plosive usage by INC 500 companies.

But among the fastest growing U.S. companies, as measured by the Inc 500, business names beginning with a plosive are only slightly more popular than those beginning with other letters. (Recall that I’ve analyzed the names contained in those INC 500 lists for the past 12 years, and that I’m reporting some of the conclusions I’ve reached in this blog.)

In analyzing the first letter of the names, the most significant conclusion about plosive usage among INC 500 is that it appears to be almost random. True, two plosives (C and P) are also top-five first-letters, but P declined in popularity since 2001 and not all C’s used in naming are hard C’s. On average, the use of those seven first-character plosive names has remained stable over the 12-year span, and represents 35% of all company names. In contrast, the use of any seven random characters is 27% on average.

I suggest it’s worth investigating the use of plosives as first-characters in names, but only as a secondary factor. There are certainly other factors more important in name creation and evaluation.

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Every year I analyze the company naming practices of the fast growing private companies listed in the annual INC 500 issue of INC™ Magazine. Then I compare the business naming trends over time – for the past 12 years in fact – 1998 through 2009. This is a 6,000 name universe, less those that show up on the list for multiple years.

Here are a few highlights:

Names incorporating coined words increased 57-percent over the 12-year period, from 23-percent of all names in 1998 to 35-percent in 2009. Coined word names represent 30-percent of all names in the study.

Combined-word names (PowerLight, Staffworks) grew at a faster rate than other coined-word names, going from 27-percent of coined-word names in 1998 to 45-percent in 2009. It was the second most popular category behind Suggestive names in 2009.

Descriptive names decreased from 18-percent in 1998 to 14-percent in 2009. They were bested by Suggestive names in four of the past five years. Even so, they represent the most names over the 12 years.

One-word names increased by 70-percent over the twelve-year span. The number three-word-and-more names declined by 40-percent.

All-in-all, fast growing companies seem to be embracing better naming methods. Particularly the last two factoids are encouraging. Descriptive names, by and large, are indistinctive, and usually result in longer names – usually three-word names. And three-letter names will usually turn into impersonal, undifferentiating sets of initials that are hard to remember even if you might want to remember them.

Now I’m not suggesting that the companies on the INC 500 list got there because they had great names. A great many got there in spite of poor names -Utility Integration Solutions, Integrated Mortgage Solutions, SDV Solutions readily come to mind. So perhaps a company name is not a major ingredient in corporate growth, but adding a great business name to the mix sure doesn’t hurt.

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If you’ve followed my blog postings concerning business naming, you’ll know I emphasize going for quantity first.

By getting as many word combinations and approaches to naming as you can – not stopping until you have at least a couple of hundred name candidates – you’ll enjoy two advantages. The first, at least a dozen or so candidates that will work as your company name. The second, and probably most important, are the directions that some of the candidates will lead you. They become catalysts for fresh naming ideas that are relevant but novel, the very characteristics I look for in a business name.

One method of creating that long list of candidates involves building a “mind map” of synonyms and associated words. You begin with a characteristic you’d like your name to possess. In the example below, it’s a “sexy name”.

Then think of the obvious words that convey sexy: romance, passion, spicy, etc. Make each one a branch from the sexy name root. Then for each of these sub-branches, list their synonyms. Just take them directly from a good thesaurus like Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus. (I particularly like this one because of the cross references to concepts, i.e. associated words which I can also add.)

You might also add some sub-branches for animals, flowers, colors, scents, etc. that you think convey sexy.

Now begin combining words from one branch with words from a second branch, then a third, etc. It won’t take but 10 to 20 minutes until you have a large list of candidates, each that might be a name or a path to one.

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Business names that were created prior to the Internet becoming as pervasive as it is now sometimes struggle with their name because their original name is just too long to be used as a domain name.

I believe that’s why we’ve seem many of these traditional marketers using abbreviated names – nick names or a string of initials – in their promotions recently. Otherwize, I don’t see why they’d mess with their name’s equity.

Most recently observed company to take this course of action: American Family Insurance.

Now first of all, even 15 years ago that name was a mouthful. But over time, and especially with the on-going use of the American Family Insurance jingle, the name has become well-known and well-appreciated. But they adopted a short domain name – AmFam – and have begun using that name as well as the long name in their advertising.

I think that just leads to confusion and dilutes the brand.

Even in the environment of texting and twittering I believe the longer, well-known and well-respected American Family Insurance name stands for something they are in danger of losing if they become known as AmFam. That loss is their heritage and their image of a responsible and well-respected insurance company. I personally look for stability and traditional values from my financial services, especially in light of the recent AIG and banking disasters. WaMo didn’t do much for Washington Mutual, did it?

Let me know if your agree or not with my admittedly reactionary response to this nick name approach to being “up-to-date”. Leave your comment below.

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In business naming, the use of specialized dictionaries of commonly used clichés, colloquialisms, idioms and slang expressions can be valuable.

You may find appropriate names there, and if someone has not already preempted them, they can be yours. I’m thinking of expressions like “Bug Out” for an exterminator, “Close Shave” for a barber, “The Acid Test” for a laboratory.

But there’s another and better use for these dictionaries.

You can find expressions that apply to the opposite of the benefit or tone you wish to adapt and substitute your own word for an offending word. These are often negative phrases to begin with which you make positive with the word switch. You may also find other word substitutions that aren’t opposites, just refreshing twists that generate an “aha” reaction with readers.

A prime example of this technique was the naming of Sears up-scale home furnishing stores: The Great Indoors. We’ve all heard of the expression, the great outdoors, so when Sears adopted this switch, they had an instantly memorable, fresh and appropriate name.

Now this technique takes some time and effort to isolate those phrases that have the right attributes. I personally have been successful with this approach only once or twice, but if you find another The Great Indoors, it will be worth it.

Here are two I’ve created that saw the light of day:

Grapes of Goodness (from Grapes of Wrath)
Phi Beta Data (from Phi Beta Kappa)

In the box above are several clichés I thought might potentially yield substitution-naming results. I challenge you to find potential name candidates for each. If you have one or two you’re really proud of, share them with us by posting them in the comments area below. No prizes, just the satisfaction of showing off your creative nature.

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