Anatomy of a Good Name
What makes a good name?
1. Some people simply use their own names to call a company. Especially lawyers and doctors name their firms after themselves - something like - Dead, Boring & co. Some of the biggest companies of today are named after someone. Procter & Gamble. Dell. I'm not that big a fan of such kind of naming. A name could be your best form of advertising. Naming a company after a person is just massaging the ego. It has no benefit.
2. Some people invent names. These words have no meaning of their own. Its like a blank black board. Any meaning can be associated to the name. If you have a lot of money to advertise, this is a good idea. Such names have the possibility of becoming house hold names. Xerox. Kodak. Igor (a name consultancy company.)
In fact, here is something interesting: George Eastman's comments to the British Patent Office when registering a trademark for Kodak:
"This is not a foreign name or word; it was constructed by me to serve a definite purpose. It has the following merits as a trade-mark word: first it is short; second, it is not capable of mispronunciation; third, it does not resemble anything in the art and cannot be associated with anything in the art."
3. Some people pick a word to name their company that means something completely different. Amazon.com for an online book shop. Apple for a computer company. A Hundred Monkeys for a name consultancy company! Frankly, I don't know why they do that. But this type of names are easy to remember. And with some advertising, can become associated with the product.
4. Some people simply open the dictionary and pick out generic terms to name their company. Like America OnLine. International Business Machines. These names are good because they instantly pass on their meaning to people. No guessing required as to what the company does. The problem with these names is that they are sometimes too long. And usually, people shorten it to AOL or IBM.
Rule of thumb: keep names shorter than 3-4 phonemes (pronunciation sounds). Or people will shorten them while speaking.
My favourite names are a mix of option 3 & 4. Using names that don't require any guessing to know what the company behind them does. But yet, these names should not be generic, but should have some out-of-the-blue meaning.
In the next post, I'll tell you about why I chose the name I chose for my marketing agency.
1. Some people simply use their own names to call a company. Especially lawyers and doctors name their firms after themselves - something like - Dead, Boring & co. Some of the biggest companies of today are named after someone. Procter & Gamble. Dell. I'm not that big a fan of such kind of naming. A name could be your best form of advertising. Naming a company after a person is just massaging the ego. It has no benefit.
2. Some people invent names. These words have no meaning of their own. Its like a blank black board. Any meaning can be associated to the name. If you have a lot of money to advertise, this is a good idea. Such names have the possibility of becoming house hold names. Xerox. Kodak. Igor (a name consultancy company.)
In fact, here is something interesting: George Eastman's comments to the British Patent Office when registering a trademark for Kodak:
"This is not a foreign name or word; it was constructed by me to serve a definite purpose. It has the following merits as a trade-mark word: first it is short; second, it is not capable of mispronunciation; third, it does not resemble anything in the art and cannot be associated with anything in the art."
3. Some people pick a word to name their company that means something completely different. Amazon.com for an online book shop. Apple for a computer company. A Hundred Monkeys for a name consultancy company! Frankly, I don't know why they do that. But this type of names are easy to remember. And with some advertising, can become associated with the product.
4. Some people simply open the dictionary and pick out generic terms to name their company. Like America OnLine. International Business Machines. These names are good because they instantly pass on their meaning to people. No guessing required as to what the company does. The problem with these names is that they are sometimes too long. And usually, people shorten it to AOL or IBM.
Rule of thumb: keep names shorter than 3-4 phonemes (pronunciation sounds). Or people will shorten them while speaking.
My favourite names are a mix of option 3 & 4. Using names that don't require any guessing to know what the company behind them does. But yet, these names should not be generic, but should have some out-of-the-blue meaning.
In the next post, I'll tell you about why I chose the name I chose for my marketing agency.
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