The Name Game

There's a great article called “How they named companies” at the Day2Day Activities blog. How do you like this for irony?

Volvo- From the Latin word “volvo,” which means “I roll.” It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

I'll never look at a Volvo without thinking about this irony again. (Latin scholars: if “volvo” doesn't mean “I roll,” please don't blame me--I'm just quoting the blog. Actually, I did verify this definition in an online Latin dictionary, but it's been a long time since I studied Latin. Plus, bloggers aren't necessarily journalists as you can read for yourself in this very interesting discussion at the Piaras Kelly PR blog.)

I'd like to provide some guidelines about naming a company or product because I meet with many companies who are in this process. Generally, the primary concern of most people seems to be whether a domain name is available. However, there are other considerations to keep in mind.

• Begin with letters early in the alphabet. Here's the scenario: you bought a booth at a massive trade show like Comdex. The list of exhibitors in the show guide is alphabetized. Would you rather be listed in the front of the guide or at back of the guide? Another scenario: A reviewer analyzes a dozen or so products. She lists them in alphabetical order in the review. Would you prefer that your product be at the beginning or end of the list?
• Avoid names starting with X and Z. This is somewhat repetitious but it's a pet peeve of mine. The worse letters to start your company or product name with are X and Z. First, they are both late in the alphabet. Second, they're confusing to spell and to pronounce. “Please Zerox this form.” “Let check out the Zilinx booth to see the latest in programmable logic stuff.”
• Embody verb potential. A great name has the potential to turn into a verb. Examples: Xerox (fortunately, they overcame the X), Google, Digg, and StuffIt. (Scoble too?***) Words with verb potential are short--no more than three syllables and “active sounding.” They need to work in phrases such as, “Why don't we just ____ it?” Or, “I'll just ____ it.” (One of my big disappointments in life is that “Kawasaki” has too many syllables to become a verb.)
• Sound different. Quick: What do the following companies do? Claris. Clarin. Claria. Clarium. Clarins. Clarinex. It's hard to remember whether they sell makeup, unplug your nose, or got killed by Apple. Great names sound different. They also spell different, for that matter.
• Embody logic. The absolute best example of naming things in a logical manner is the approach by the clever folks at Pokémon. You don't have to be a kid to figure out what Geodude and Lickitung look like. Can the same be said of names like Tenaris, Abaxis, and Ceradyne? Sounding different + spelling different + embodying logic = a memorable name. Here's a good test: If you told your company or product name to ten strangers, would at least half of them guess what business you're in?
• Avoid the trendy. Mea culpa: we made a big mistake when we started what is now Garage Technology Ventures. We called it “garage.com.” Yup, with a lower case “G.” It was a brief lapse into modesty and eBay envy. We had a great slogan too: “We put the capital in you, not in our name.” (Later, we considered an even better slogan: “We take the FU out of funding.”) The “.com” was a mistake too because “dotcom” became synonymous with “no business model.” If you think there's a cool trend in naming going on, my advice is that you avoid it.

It doesn't matter whether you check the domain first, then apply these recommendations or vice versa. But please do both because saddling a great company or great product with a crappy name is a real crime.

Written at: Atherton, California

*** I threw this in since he's always saying that I don't include enough outbound links in my blog. How's that for sucking up? :-)

Addendum 1: You have to read this Salon piece referred to me by Kevin Marks. It's hilarious.

Addendum 2: Avoid the commonplace and generic. This was pointed out by Shaula Evans. If you name your product or company something commonplace and generic, people will never find it in Google, Download.com, VersionTracker, etc. Her example is if you name your company “Water” and your product “Word.” At least one should be distinctive.

Comments

[Jack]

Interesting post. One thing that's missing from the Day2Day page, however, is attribution. The content is just ripped off from a Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies

and several of the Day2Day entries are ones I wrote myself ;-)

[Vinit]

Sometimes, making your name memorable helps ... esp. in the startup phase ...

With a product called "Vantrax" ... a few weeks later, the "Anthrax" scare hit the news.
So, when we introduced our company, people would go "vantrax ... like anthrax" ... we could only roll our eyes and nod.

Luckily, our software product got a positive connotation ... notice how many people think software = non-violent and software = nothing-to-do-with-global-mess

heh!

[Humphrey Bogus]

This is an interesting guide to the naming process.
http://www.igorinternational.com/process/naming-guide-product-company-names.php

There was also a great story on how Fatbrain.com was chosen (from the old name, ComputerLiteracy.com), but I'm having trouble locating it.

[Guy Kawasaki]

Chelsea:

RE: Guy, please don't fall prey to the pressure to start linking to "A list" bloggers. This is one of the things I liked about your posts - that you didn't engage in this slavish, sycophantic behavior that is so common in the blog world. Maybe that's because you were unaware of it, but your naivete was noticable and refreshing. Gratuitous linkage to other bloggers (almost always done in hopes of a link back, increased traffic, etc) is inauthentic and makes the blogging community seem insular and irrelevant.
-------------------------------------------

I don't really get this whole linking thing. For example, there are several bloggers who hated my How to Suck Up To a Blogger post, but they all linked to it. It seems to me that if you think something is stupid, unethical, etc, you try to make sure no one ever reads it, right?

I think they thought by linking to this heinous piece of writing, more people would be enraged. It seems to have backfired...but I digress. I sure as heck wasn't going to link back to someone calling me stupid, unethical, etc. If people want to conclude that I'm stupid, they need to do that all by themselves. :-)

There are three reasons at work when I link:

1) I think something is great and my reader would gain value by seeing it. Eg, the Salon article about naming.

2) To help people who I believe deserve help because they are trying to do good. This is kind of a moral obligation thing.

3) To acknowledge people who have helped me--for example, posted a valuable comment here.

I guess there's a fourth. Sometimes I'll link in a blatant suck up in order to illustrate the silliness of this practice.

The key philosphy is this: I am not writing to get the attention of the "A-list" bloggers. I am writing to help regular people build better companies, kick butt, make meaning, and change the world.

Don't get me wrong: I intend to be in the Technorati 100 which obviously requires links. But i hope these links will be from the great masses of "unknown" bloggers and practitioners who my blog helped.

Guy

[Andy Huckaba]

When we named my current company, Finity Technologies, we went through some interesting thinking with the help of a friend and sharp marketer out of Dallas named Brent Earles. Some excerpts from Brent's note to me follow:

Brand Promise
NewCo brings consumers and companies together with a positive one-to-one advertising experience made possible and necessary by digital and interactive technologies.

Brand Position
NewCo is striving to provide consumer relevance to the rapidly emerging category of personalized digital advertising delivery.

Potential Names

Descriptive

Ad.Vantage -- This name has a nice prismatic effect, offering a number of meanings that would suit marketing well (e.g., providing advantages to consumers and advertisers alike, a new vantage point of seeing things). It supports the positioning uniquely. The "period", intentionally in the name, suggests Internet and digital in an understated way and also lends some interesting design potential to the brandmark.

Working tagline: "See the difference."

Derivative

EnView -- This name is dervied from the prefix "en", which means "inside", and "view", which relates to entertainment, of course. So, the "inside view" of advertising is the underlying meaning to this derived name.

Working tagline: "Our audience is watching."

Conceptual

Finity -- As a concept, this idea takes on both the "finiteness" of the demographic universe in one-to-one marketing/advertising ... and yet the "infinite" possibilies that advertisers can deploy from their imaginations to reach consumers. I also like that the word "finally" is a "sounds like" companion to this name.

Working tagline: "Just imagine."

NOTE: We ended up going with Finity. Generally it just felt right. The only real problem has been that it is close to Infinity and we find ourselves correcting people.

[David Reyes]

When it comes to naming your company, I feel that it's too important a job to fall into the hands of an amateur—you—and should be done by an expert. For that reason, I believe you should give your company a placeholder name during the initial formation of the company, and make it explicit that it is a placeholder name. In fact, the initials PHN should follow your temporary name as an indicator of that intention. The placeholder name should follow in one of several conventions: You should name it like a law firm (Kawasaki, Jobs PHN); give it a market descriptive name (Page-ranking Search Engine PHN, Micropayment PHN); or city/descriptor name (Boston Implantable Medical Device PHN, Austin Cell Phone Mapping PHN).

By providing an explicit placeholder name, the new company smell persists until you actually name it. In the meantime, however, interested parties provide their naming ideas, and everyone has a naming idea. It has the potential of adding to your company’s buzz. And when you actually name the company, ideally when you are still in stealth mode, you would have had the luxury of time, and perhaps expert opinion, increasing the likelihood of a favorable outcome.

Another advantage is that VCs are in fact your initial costumer. They are the ones at the crosshairs of your marketing efforts, not the end consumer. You’re not selling widgets at this point, you’re selling your idea. A PHN makes for a more efficient transaction when dealing with the VC, since a major facet of your company is captured in the name. And a VC would only welcome the opportunity to provide naming input, including offering opinions of which obvious mistakes to avoid when naming your company. Or, put another way, you are at a clear disadvantage if your name sucks, and you have to defend it to a displeased VC. A PHN avoids naming pitfalls and adds a transaction efficiency, including the possibility of generating good will (the VC’s opinion).

A company name must pass many tests that most amateurs are unaware of—the legal jungle is only one of them. Names like Yahoo and Google were good names almost by luck, and you shouldn’t think you have that same sort of luck.

[George]

Well, it looks like I did a couple of things right with my company name: It's short, includes what I do, and early in the alphabet (thanks to my last name). Unfortunately, the name also includes a '.com'. But I don't worry too much about the implication you mentioned because I don't have a written business plan anyway!

Oh, and here's another Latin lesson: A not-so-famous not-quite-conqueror once said "Veni, vidi, discedi" -- "I came, I saw, I left."

[Patrick Fischer]

In reagrds to trademarks. First to use is first to own. There are over 1000 filed trademarks that contain the word Apple, while there are over 400 reagistered trademarks that contain the word Apple. We all know that there is only one apple Computer.

Take a word like Accessibility and you'll find only 49 applications with 23 that are officially registered.

In 1993 I developed JAVApc which was an Internet payphone for coffe shops but I sat on the idea and name for years until one day - 1997 I decided to register it, but a company called Sun had beat me to it.

The moral, in the name game, pick a name that no else has, grab the domain (proof of first to use), register it with USPTO.gov, and build a business. Cheers!

[chelsea]

Guy, please don't fall prey to the pressure to start linking to "A list" bloggers. This is one of the things I liked about your posts - that you didn't engage in this slavish, sycophantic behavior that is so common in the blog world. Maybe that's because you were unaware of it, but your naivete was noticable and refreshing. Gratuitous linkage to other bloggers (almost always done in hopes of a link back, increased traffic, etc) is inauthentic and makes the blogging community seem insular and irrelevant.

[Lars Plougmann]

There have been a few mentions of trademarks in the comments. It is an important step to search for potential conflicts with existing trademarks in the jurisdictions you plan to sell your product or service. By the same token, you should consider restrictions on what names can be registered as trademarks. Avoiding the generic is key here: You wouldn't be able to register the name "WaterCooler" for a device that chilled water no matter how sophisticated it was. Conversely, it is one of the reasons that Apple is such a good name for computers and gadgets.

[Erik Starck]

Volvo = "I roll"
Video = "I see"

And that's about all the Latin I know.

[Kai Xu]

How about "alertie"?

[Lee Harvey Osmond]

'Volvo' means 'I roll'? I never learned much Latin, apart from the discussion in Winston Churchill's memoirs of how to address a table, and the well-known "Romanus eunt domus" business. It's just that I understood that while 'Volvo' means 'I roll', it also means 'I roll over'.

[Barceloner]

> A reviewer analyzes a dozen or so products. She lists them in alphabetical order in the review. Would you prefer that your product be at the beginning or end of the list?

A friend of mine used to work in a well-known london cheese shop. When describing a list of cheeses to a customer, he would put the really mature ones at the beginning and *end* of the list, as these were the ones that stick in your head.

[Chetan Dhruve]

I think Accenture came from an internal competition..."ACCENT on the futURE).

[David]

I'm a fan of a naming firm called, surprisingly enough, Igor. They have a very thorough naming guide - http://snipurl.com/naming.

Trademark law is an odd conglomeration of state and federal law. There is no such thing as registering a state trademark (though you can register the name of a company, this own't provide enforceable rights). The main costs of filing a federal mark are the attorney's fees and possibly performing a search. The PTO fees are $275 (minimum fee for one class) plus $100 for issuance. It is likely that you will need to respond to a rejection, have more than one class etc.

Cheers,
David

[Servant of Chaos]

There is "to Kawasaki" BUT "to be Kawasaki'd" ... would be damaging to both one's ego and one's hope of funding.

[Adrian]

I'd add one more consideration: "Ask a trusted third party to vet your name." It can save you a lot of grief down the line.

Case in point: My tiny IT consultancy's name is MageTek ("We do magic with technology"), but we forgot that many external references (e.g. business listings and email addresses) are exported in ALL-UPPER or all-lower casing. We also didn't realize that many non-native English speakers would have trouble pronouncing a fairly uncommon word like "mage".

If we had asked someone outside the company a simple question like "How would you pronounce our company name?" before registration, we wouldn't now be entertaining calls for "Maggi-tek" (makers of hi-tech instant noodles) or "Mah-gi-tek" (way-kewl architects).

Sigh...

[Jeff]

"Okay, we need to trim about 60 pages out of our business plan and shave about 30mins off our PowerPoint presentation because the last VC we met fell asleep during our presentation."

"I know, I'll just Kawasaki it"

There you go, your name in verb.

[BD Handspicker]

Back in 1996 I took a group of folks out of Digital to start a company developing native web-based applications that "enabled business professionals". We ended up calling the company WebEnable. (That company became the first Partner Relationship Management software company.)

The whole concept of web applications was so new back then that we were scoffed out of a few VCs offices. ("Who'd ever want to use web-based applications?") But, we persevered and also applied for a trade-mark on the name.

Within the year that it took the PTO to consider our application, an industry developed to enable non-web applications to present a web-based interface. The term "web-enable" became pervasive. Our trademark application was denied on the basis that it was overly descriptive of a (now) existing process.

Moral of the story: pick a name which is evocative of what you do and which can be verbed, but not one that is overly descriptive.

[Patrick Fischer]

I think anybody can build a great company, but the name is the first step. To win the name game, you must "Think Different", as if you never saw a box. The sound a child makes when playing with a car "vroom" is a great name, but the company has to reflect a connection to the name, or the game is lost.

If you run a screen reader and listen to how it extracts words that are butted up together, you can hear that multiple words togther sound great, and make a rememberable domain. Trademark law says first to use owns it. Spending less then a $100 registers your name (same as domain) at your state level and for $350 you can get the federal mark. Now that is how I think you play the game.
There is an old saying.com

[Guy Kawasaki]

Rory,

I like it. I changed the title of my blog in your honor. Latin makes my blog seem so much more..."classy."

What's the Latin word for "suck up"?

Thanks,

Guy

[Rory Geoghegan]

"Volvo" is "I roll" in latin. Also, "Let the Good Times Roll" would translate as "Bona tempes volvant."

[Mariano Vassallo]

sorry, wrong link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani#Language

you've probably been asked a million times but - speaking of brands - do you have any relation with the motorcycle company?

[Mariano Vassallo]

The article in Salon is very good!

I think it's way more dificult to find a good brand in spanish, since both latin and english words sound too familiar, and the Agilent/Lucent clones sound too american.
I guess i'll try with guaraní (http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=4&oi=define&q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani)