Business Naming Basics

IBM, RCA, AIG and MSN are recognized corporate names, but I wouldn’t follow their lead when naming a company.

First of all, almost all three-initial named companies began as something else: International Business Machines, Radio Corporation of America, etc., etc. Those names were so cumbersome shorthand names were naturally adopted, probably internally at first, but rapidly spreading to suppliers, distributors and customers. The next step was adopting the shorthand in the companies’ external communications. So over time, and with big communications budgets, the initials began to represent the company.

But with newly-formed companies initials mean nothing.

Initials have no personality They don’t resonate. They don’t inspire. They communicate no passion, history or expertise. They are just initials, having no actual meaning, just an identification – like a part number.

Most often those initials stand for something. But I know one company from the 1970’s whose initialed name stood for nothing relevant. That company was NBI, and those initials stood for “nothing but initials”. Needless to say, it was a Boulder-based company. And it no longer exists.

But usually those three initials represent multi-syllable, Latin-ending, generic descriptors that vaguely describe the company’s business category. So they started off with a bad company naming strategy – making the name comply to its industry and/or product description. What else could they do except to adopt the initials?

Now some initial sets can work as names if those initials already have a familiar and appealing connotation for their customers because of previous associations: MVP, QED, ASAP come to mind. But most three-initial names might just as well have been picked from a bowl of alphabet soup by a blindfolded chimp as far as relevance is concerned.

The best names for companies are short, active one or two word names. Even a coined word name is so much better than lifeless initials. And usually those short names have fewer syllables than a set of three initials. Remember that a major function of a corporate name is to represent the company in a distinctive, memorable way. Names like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple are easily remembered compared to CRW, MSN, AOL and IMC.

So when naming a business, stick to words, preferably one or two short, active Anglo-Saxon words.

You may be long-remembered for your efforts.

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