A lot by the looks of it! That’s what we found when we went about asking the rationale behind entrepreneurs’ naming their businesses
The ever so classical quote from William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet may sound sweet to the ears, but naming businesses is a completely different ball game.
For many entrepreneurs, choosing the ‘perfect name’ seems to be more difficult than the thought of rolling out their business. While some stick to the obvious, others prefer bringing in philosophy, or just simply playing with words. Then, there are some really interesting names such as Apple, Orange, Virgin, Sun, etc that made it really big. Apparently, there is no thumb rule in arriving upon a perfect name. This piece walks you through different lines of thoughts, and might just help you when you set out to name your company.
| DARE/basic checklist |
| Simple to remember and recall |
| Flexible for growth into other areas |
| Speaks about your target niche, philosophy, etc |
| Clarifies what your business does |
| Can be trademarked |
| Does not have a negative connotation in any other language |
| Should not sound like any other name |
Ask Rana Kapoor, founder of YES Bank, about the thought process behind naming his bank and he says, “For a greenfield venture, significant strategic thought-process and investment are required to create and establish the brand name as a financial trust mark. This is crucial, particularly in the context of financial services”. The name YES Bank was apparently conceived after many rounds of brainstorming and was put through rigorous market research. Kapoor explains the chosen name, “YES is an affirmative word that has a huge positive attached to it. It implies action and dynamism and in summary creates a philosophy within the bank that is customer-centric. Apart from all of this it gives an international feel and is yet very simply understood in all parts of the country and the globe”. Talking about bank names, the reason behind namingDena Bank (give) is more obvious.
The name SpiceJet came into being with a simple thought. “The inspiration for the name and the logo was the traditional spice-box that is found in Indian kitchens. The colors represent burnt chili, saffron and turmeric,” says Deepa Dey, GM, Communications and Organizational Culture, SpiceJet. “The word spice is an intrinsic part of Indian culture, while jet defines the industry in which we are and also brings with it a sense of movement, speed and abundance of energy,” says Dey.
If you think the name Vishal Retail has something to do with the owner, you are mistaken. Vishal, in Hindi, means huge, and stands for the dream and plans of Ram Chandra Agarwal, Founder, Vishal Group. On the other hand, Emmay HR, a recruitment company, did derive its name from the initials of its entrepreneur, Monisha Advani. The reason, mentions Advani, is a promise she had made to herself as a child to start a company and name it after herself to act as a legacy to leave behind.
Coming to online networks, Orkut was simply named after the Google engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten. “Orkut is easier to spell and pronounce than Buyukkokten,” they say on their site.
The online photo sharing website Flickr has a much different tale. Founder of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield mentioned the following in an interview with CBSNews: In an age of curious-sounding website names, Flickr came largely by accident. The domain owner of flicker.com wouldn’t sell, so Caterina, Butterfield’s wife and co-founder, suggested Flickr, which Butterfield says made the service stand out. “We always had to spell it out for people, which helped make it stick,” says Butterfield.
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written by Sunil Suresh, August 18, 2009
Today, I am doing mostly Technical Writing work rather than programming, but I still work under the name of "SOFTSELL". The name now no longer matches the kind of work I do, but after having built an identity (in a small way), I would not like to give it up.
(If only I had thought of a more generic name, like "IT Guru" or something like that, I wouldn't be facing this problem of having a name that no longer matches with the work I do! :-)
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But here is the real reason behind the name. This site aims to fill a void in the e-commerce space for good quality, well maintained seconds. These are 'deals' that will be such a 'steal' once you spot something you want and can buy it at a fraction of the actual price.
The logo of this brand is even more fun..it's an ace of clubs card.The tagline is 'An ace site for quality seconds'. Read more about this here...
http://writtenpath.blogspot.com/search?q=seconddealnsteal