Business Naming Basics

Business naming can be a trend-following activity.

When a lot of company names are just three letters, many think that would be a cool way to name their business. Plus it doesn’t take a lot of thought – not to even mention creativity.
  

But unless those initials already stand for something  that’s appropriate for the company (MVP, QED, ASAP), initials don’t mean a thing to prospects and customers until they have a considerable history with the company. And then the initials have no actual meaning, just an identification – like a part number.
 
Initials have no personality They don’t resonate. They don’t elicit emotion. They are hard to remember, especially for those just experiencing the name. They don’t differentiate the company. They communicate no passion, history or expertise. They are just initials.
 
So I suggest going instead with a short, active one or two word name. Even if it’s a coined word name, that’s so much better than lifeless initials.

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Here are the highlights from a scan of last week’s (Aug 2-10) business naming blogs.

• Luxury Brand Naming on Ketchup?

August 11, 2009
- The economy is like a boat in that we all rise and fall with the tide, even stalwards like Tiffany and Rollex.

• Greedy Guccis Barred from Using the Gucci Brand Name for Their Product Naming

August 11, 2009
- Oh, what tangled webs we weave!

• Why We Love Coining New Product Names From "Twitter"

August 11, 2009

• Natural Product Naming Rids Kimberly-Clark of the Kleercut "Brand"

August 11, 2009
- As I’ve said before, naming and branding “green” is no longer a differentiator. Now consumers are expecting products to be responsible – all products. And with the dubious claims for being environmentally friendly just because you’ve gone to a less substantial plasic bottle, no one is convinced of manufacturer claims.

• Go Go Godzilla!: Don’t Mess with Toho Co, They Protect Their Mark Fiercely

August 11, 2009
- Trademarks are sometimes difficult for the courts to judge. How far will Godzilla go? Is Filezilla next?

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Company naming, product naming and naming resources covered this week

• UNIQLO: A Retail Brand Naming Strategy That Just Works

August 4, 2009
- Is it Uniqlo or Uniglo? I can pronounce the latter, not the former.

• All Hail Altegrity! Catchword Sets The Foundation For A New Brand Identity

August 4, 2009
- Well, Altegrity will take some getting used to, as do most coined words. But for me, I stay away from names beginning with “Al”, “At” and “Ad”. There just seem to be too many new company names like that.

• Lululemon on the benefits of the letter L

August 4, 2009
- Yes, certain letters and letter combinations can evoke warm or active or cozy feelings. The letter “L” is soft, and when several are in the same name, well, isn’t LuLulemon fun to pronounce?

• Free company and product naming

August 4, 2009
- The WordLab is a great resouce – and it’s free.

• Radio Shack Name Change Begs the Question: What’s “The Shack?”

August 4, 2009
Including a limiting product noun is short-sighted, even when the scope is 30 or more years.

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• Steve Saleen Drives Into a Company Naming Crisis

July 28, 2009
- Yes, a clear reason to resist ego-naming your company after yourself. All entrepreneurs should take this to heart.

• Rebranding Pepsi: The Linguistics behind the "Pecsi" Campaign

July 28, 2009
- Here’s another example of why global branding and naming must be at least reviewed by natives immersed in their cultures rather than by someone in a NYC office with an English-to-Transylvania dictionary.

• Wabi-sabi: There’s a Name For It

July 28, 2009
- Yes indeed, words from other languages are certainly candidates for business names. Quite often the sound of these names can communicate attributes of the brand. And there’s also the mystique of a foreign place that can be compelling for some brands. But…you should be doubly diligent about how these words translate into other foreign languages and what they might connote to other cultures.

• Saab's Swedish Naming Makes it The Ultimate Anti-Brand

July 28, 2009
- Is there really a trend toward “anti-branding”, or is it smart branding? I believe “being different” is a major component of a good brand. And I think that difference needs to be reflected in the business name, the single most prominent branding element.

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Company names reduced to nicknames: that’s a naming trend I’d like to see stopped in its tracks.

I’ve ranted about this before, particularly about the now-absorbed Washington Mutual calling itself “Wa Mu”. Terrible idea. I don’t think their shortening of the business name caused their financial problems, but in hind site, it did demonstrate a lack of management constraint and focus. Anyway…

The newest demonstration of nicknaming just breaks my heart. The guilty party? The venerable National Geographic.

Now first let me acknowledge the name is not “large enough” for its charter, and never has been. But over time most constituents have come to know and accept the brand and what the name stands for without questioning “National” or “Geographic” as being inadequate, largely because they consistently maintained the society’s identity.

The National Geographic Society name and logo

Everyone knows that year after year, month after month the magazine, with its National Geographic yellow and dramatic cover photograph, was (and still is) a great getaway and information source about our planet and its amazing diversity. With the introduction of the TV channel and a select catalog of travel/adventure products, National Geographic has admirably kept pace, and even more importantly, led the environmental movement.

Because of its associations and focus, the brand stands alone no matter what the name says in a literal “translation”. National Geographic is about great photos and writing, about the dangers to our planet, about exotic cultures, about adventure, and about innovative efforts to fund additional exploration and research. Yes, National Geographic is national treasure – no, make that a global treasure with a limiting name.

Never-the-less National Geographic STANDS FOR SOMETHING.

But now, probably influenced by the texting trend, they have seen fit to use a nickname on their National Geographic Channel website. It’s just terrible.

It’s Nat Geo.

Shame on you, National Geographic Society. Shame on you for violating your brand, for diluting your name, for alienating a core segment of your constituency.

Oh, and to make matters worse, on the National Geographic home page, they refer to themselves as “NG” upon occasion. NG? I know that as an abbreviation for “no good”!

Their tagline/mission statement is “Inspiring People to Care About the Planet”. National Geographic is inspiring, Nat Geo or NG not so much.

Perhaps it’s just my age that brings about a prejudice against the “newest thing”, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good branding.

I invite your take on this subject in the comments box further down this page.

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As the owner of a naming company, I must confess that I don’t always hit home runs.

It’s not that I don’t try. It’s just that everyone doesn’t have the same idea of what a perfect name is. Several of my clients are in that category.

Comments that aren't helpful in selecting a business name

Sometimes I will recommend a business name I believe to be a winning name but the client has other ideas. Or to be more accurate, they don’t have any ideas that provide constructive direction. They are just uncomfortable with the candidates I’ve presented.

This happens even though in most cases we have agreed upon naming goals and criteria before I’ve generated naming candidates. I do that with a document called a naming brief.

Most often, I find that clients are uncomfortable with the out-of-the-box uniqueness of a coined word name. But there have been instances when name candidates of any construction just won’t suit them. And usually they find no specific objection. They just don’t feel comfortable with the candidates presented.

Today I attempt to get in sync through the use of a couple of additional questions in the naming brief. (The naming brief is a document I ask my clients to fill out of me. It requires the client think about the purpose and goals for the name, along with other relevant information.) At the end of this document I now ask that the client provide me with five names of other companies that they like and would feel comfortable with. I also ask that they give me business names of five companies they do not like. Also I ask them to divulge any taboos or sacred cows concerning their new name.

This will not eliminate all of the problems in communication between us. But I have found many more name candidates are looked upon with favor.

Many will think it odd that I am not as adamant as some consultants are about their recommendations. But I have found that a company’s name, at least for the company’s CEO, is a very personal, ego driven decision. There is no use trying to sell a client on a particular name if he or she does not enthuse about it.

Using this method has created many more situations where my first recommendation is accepted with enthusiasm.

I adhere to the proposition that the client is right, particularly if it is his company that is being named. I just provide him or her the best options I can invent.

Tags: Naming Issues by MartinJ
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Quite often a business owner will ask his employees to help name or rename the business through a contest.

I believe this is a bad idea.

Better stage a race than ask employees to name your business.

There are several reasons for this, the first being that very few acceptable names are produced in this manner. Every so often you will hear a successful name being generated by a contest, but this is the exception, not the rule.

For smaller companies this process can also generate bad blood, or at least hurt feelings if someone’s “perfect gem” is not chosen. And if no name is picked from the pool of contest entries there are bad feelings all around.

So often an entrepreneur will accept a poor name rather than cause poor morale within the organization, and ask him or her self, “Why did I think a contest was a good idea?”

The answer, of course, is not to start a contest in the first place.

Reserve contests for blood drives and the bowling team.

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Using a descriptive business name, as I wrote yesterday, leads to a dead-end for rapidly growing companies.

But that’s just one problem when trying to morph a description into a corporate name.

Another major problem is that to truly describe a business usually takes at least three words. Not only that, they are usually multi-syllable words. The names are too long and too “intellectual”.

Here are four such company names from the latest list of INC 500 Rapidly Growing Companies:

Advanced Planning Services
Ancillary Care Management
Apex Facility Resources
Assured Information Security

Each is certainly a mouthful. But besides being hard to remember because of word-length, there’s nothing with a spark. Nothing “grabs” you.

And I’ll bet by now stakeholders within and outside the respective companies have resorted to calling the companies by their initials: APS, ACM, AFR, AIS.

And pretty soon, one or more will officially change their name to those initials and believe they’re making a wise choice.

But as I’ve stated more than once (my blog entitled Business naming with three initials – bad branding, for instance), initials have no personality or vitality. The name becomes a liability instead of an asset.

So for a multitude of reasons, descriptive names are bad names and should be avoided.

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There’s a great danger that you will outgrow a descriptive name.

The problem is that entrepreneurs don’t see business naming as a strategic activity. In the beginning, they just want to be identified with an industry or product category by adopting a name that describes their business. They do this without thought to the company’s future.

The last name change I was involved in would have cost the company – a regional construction supply business – around $50-thousand. Because of the expense, they opted to retain their name which identified them as a supplier of industrial staples. So their sales force must continue to explain to prospects that they can also supply re-bar, compressors, and generators even thought the company’s name just promises “staples”.

The solution is to not adopt a descriptive name. How could a company like Go-Daddy that began life selling domain names exclusively grow as rapidly as it has if their name had been ABC Domain Names, Inc.? The major players in hi-tech today have usually adopted coined word names, suggestive names or arbitrary names.

Those names types will require some getting used to by the company founders, and they will need to be promoted before they become household names. But this will pay off over time as they grow out of their original product/service niche.

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I recently read a blog post at Greentech Media about a trend toward creating company names with double vowel words. Here are several they mentioned: Jadoo, Soraa, Kaai, Deeya, Oorja.

As I commented on their blog, I think it will be a short-lived trend.

Effective use of double-vowels in top row names, not so effective for bottom row names

Using double-e’s and double-o’s are perfectly acceptable in the middle or the end of a word, but to lead off with “Ee” or “Oo” makes it difficult for readers to pronounce and comprehend. As for double a’s, i’s and u’s, they just complicate the pronunciation and comprehension situation even farther – no matter where in the word they happen to be placed.

Now I’m an advocate of unique corporate names. But I also have other criteria I attempt to apply, sometimes with limited success. Those criteria might include memorability, relevance and comfort.

I’m also an advocate of coined word names (aka neologisms) for their uniqueness. But I also apply the criteria of memorability, relevance and comfort – along with pronouncibility.

In the names cited by Greentech, the name origins were often relevant to the company or product in another, sometimes obsolete, language. That doesn’t excuse their adoption unless they’re only marketing to Sri Lanka natives or sandskrit readers.

Names are sometimes adopted out of desperation. There’s not enough time to come up with a really superb name in the first week or so. Then the outlandish and obscure are seen in a favorable light.

Since the business name is vital in reflecting the corporate personality and tenor, I suggest taking all the time it takes and don’t settle for obscurity.

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