Picking a company name

Great Brand Names of our time:
Amazon
Google
Verizon
Xerox
Jamazoo

Sometimes I see a brand name and I wonder, what the hell were they thinking? There is a storage facility that I know of called A-AAAAAAAA Storage. Or is it A-AAAAA Storage? That name was chosen to be first in the phonebook, but how will it differentiate itself from AAAA Storage and the rest? Do you think it is memorable?

I have thought a lot about this subject and it can be broken down into several parts.

  1. It must be a name that is available as a dot.com
  2. It should be a made up word, 5-8 characters
  3. It must look good in print - Jamazoo !
  4. It must be something that people can spell the first time they HEAR it. I have a great brand name for one of my companies that everyone likes, but no one can spell. Oops.
  5. Even if you use common words, make sure that they are spellable. It is amazing to me how many customers I have that can’t spell “Liquid” which is part of the name of another company I own. Who are these stupid people? Oh yeah, Customers.
  6. Keep your own name out of it. I had a company at one point that used my name. It was a never ending stream of phone calls for people that would only want to talk to me - people I didn’t know, and I couldn’t help. If they need accounts payable, call that department not me!

The hardest part to think about is how will others see the name? Once you have fallen in love with a name, it becomes almost impossible to be objective about it. Tell it to people, then ask them to spell it. Google it to see if it is in heavy use by someone else. Tear it apart. Search the USPTO site for others that have tried to register it as a trademark. You may find a great name, only to discover it is shared with line of exotic condoms for less-endowed people.

OK, so I didn’t do all of that for this blog. I just checked to see if the name was available and registered it. This is only a blog to vent on anyway. So there…..