Minding Your Own Brand

What are you going to name it?
By Dave Lubelczyk

My wife and I recently had our second baby, and like all expectant parents we had to go through the often difficult process of picking a name. Choosing a name is one of the first big decisions you make for your child and it can have a large impact on their future. Anyone familiar with the 1980s movie The Sure Thing remembers the diatribe of John Cusack’s character in which he expresses his disgust for the name “Elliot” who will grow up to be “a fat kid with glasses who eats paste.” He then goes on to explain that “You gotta give him a real name. Give him a name! Like Nick….Nick’s a real name! Nick’s your buddy. Nick’s the kinda guy you can trust.”

Choosing a name for your company or product is as important as naming your child, so don’t take it lightly. First and foremost the name has to be unique. Growing up in classrooms filled with Davids, Johns and Jennifers, the one thing that set me apart was my last name. Speaking of my last name, that brings me to the next point. You have to be able to say it and spell it. I know first hand how having a name like Lubelczyk, which is both difficult to say and spell, can be a real pain. In this world of URLs, search engines, and online directories, being able to spell your company’s name is crucial unless you want to spend a lot of money registering all the misspellings of the name. Before you pick a name, make sure you can get the .COM because chances are if you can only register the .NET, the .BIZ or you have to put in a lot of dashes or an “e” in front of it, no one will ever find you...but they will find your competitor.

A name also has to fit the personality of the company now and the personality you want it to grow up to be. Unlike Little Rickey who can become Richard the CEO or Rick the Fireman, you are stuck with that name for a long time. So choose wisely. If you have to change it later, the costs both financially and in lost recognition will be massive. The longer you have a name, the harder it will be to change. Just ask KFC who has recently gone back to Kentucky Fried Chicken because despite massive amounts of advertising telling us that KFC was their name and it stood for “Kitchen Fresh Chicken”, no one really forgot that this company southern-fried their chicken.

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