Brands, Marketing, Product Names, Product Naming

How to use Great or Latin Words for a Great Company Name

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nike swoosh - greek root for mondern company nameRecently online, we saw a domain name sales company, which shall remain nameless, mocking the use of Greek and Latin words as a basis for a great company name and domain name.

We couldn’t disagree with this company more.

We think that when you have at the heart of your company, your company name, and that name is steeped in tradition and history, it gives a great life or spirit to the company.

using greek root for company name

Think of Nike, the shoe company, but we probably didn’t have to tell you that, as a great example.  Nike also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory she is a spirit or personification for a company which has been built on providing speed and success through their product, their shoes in this case.

Nike represents strength, speed, and victory and what a perfect spirit for the company.

This other domain company, that didn’t like the Greek or Latin idea said that no one will know the meaning so what does it matter.  We say even if your customers don’t know the Greek or Latin meaning you and your employees will.

Let your company name be the spirit of your business.  Let your company name be the personification of your business.

This said, having this historical root to your company name, can really open a great deal of opportunity for marketing.  You can incorporate a God or Goddess or earth, fire or water, whatever the root may be.

Let history be your guide and be bold and never be afraid of looking to the past for inspiration for company names in the future!

Twitt

Business Naming, Eye Catching Business Names

Find out what your Product Name Means

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check your company name meaning

Brandings could not have timed this any better! Recently we blogged, Learn What Your Name Means in a Foreign Country, and I think we’ll have to expand that to just learn what your name means in foreign languages.

Recently Target released a new shoe, here in the states, called the “orina.” According to Target they said the name is based on what they thought was a Russian translation for “peace” or “peaceful” but what they got was far different.

Target learned about a week ago that “orina” means “urine” in Spanish, not what they were expecting or looking for, that’s for sure.

If you want to read more click here to read the Huffington Post report.

This just goes back to the fact that you need to do everything you can to make sure you don’t make this mistake.  We must also point out that even huge companies make this mistake.

Do you know of any funny product or company name mistakes?

Twitt

Articles, Brands, Product Naming

Learn What Your Name Means in a Foreign Country

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Learn What Your Name Means in a Foreign Country

Checking your Company Name in Other Languages

We’ve talked about it in the past but we thought we would share with you a recent article that we’ve come across which has been making headlines recently.

Recently a app developer Matt Henderson released his latest creation and something really remarkable started to happen, the app was becoming an overnight sensation. This app, which we have not tried yet, allows users to chart their favorite places and drop a pin in.

The funny thing is thing, he began to realize with all the downloads there was a disproportionate amount of them are coming from Brazil. Over 25% of all the downloads were coming from Brazil.

He decided to find out why and what he found surprised him.

He found out that his app “Rego” means “butt crack” in Brazilian slang. Whatever they were doing with app it sure became really popular.

This story has a really happy ending, the app is just growing in popularity, which is translating to success and money but it could have gone another way.

Lucky for Mr. Henderson his name didn’t mean something more provocative or have a really negative meaning.  It just means that you have to check what your company name, app or product means before you launch it.

Do you have any funny product or company names you want to tell us about?  If so, we’d love to hear it and get a good laugh.

If you want to read more on subject check out this great article on MSN’s website.

To learn more about company naming just follow this link!

Twitt

Marketing, Trade Dress

What is Trade Dress

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We get a lot of questions every day about what a trademark is and one thing we realized is that there is quite a bit of confusion between a trademark and trade dress.  With out being a lawyer, the most simple answer I can give is that trade dress is given on a physical attribute of a product that is distinctive.

That said, this can transfer over to architecture as well.  Think of McDonald’s and its arches or Best Buy and their slanted roof.

As I mentioned, I’m not a lawyer but I found this great YouTube video by a lawyer who does explain what trade dress is in a interesting way.

I hope that this little video helped answer any questions you may have had between a trademark and trade dress.

Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll try to answer them in another blog.

Twitt

Business Naming, Naming

49ers vs. The Ravens, who has the better Super Bowl Team Name / Company Name?

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With the Super Bowl freshly in our minds we thought we would play out a bit of a Super Bowl of our own.  We’re having the 49ers vs Raven, which team has the most successful team name or brand.  In the end when you look at it, a team name is really just a product or company name and if you expand that a brand. 49ers company logo

With all of that said, let’s look at the two teams.

First we have the San Francisco 49rs. The term Forty Nines goes back to 1849 and the California Gold Rush.  The term 49ers is then a reference to the year, the gold rush began with people flooding into California looking to make their fortune in gold.  Half of the men flooding into California came from the East and literally walked to Sutter’s Mill where the gold was discovered but the other half came by ship pouring into San Francisco harbor.

Second the Baltimore Ravens.  The Ravens got their team name in 1996 after a naming contest, when the Cleveland Browns moved and need a new name.  The origin of the name comes from an 1845 Edger Allen Poe poem where a man is tortured and pushed into insanity by a black raven.  Constantly badgered by this raven this man is driven into madness.

Now that we know where the names come from and what they are, which one of these teams has the best name in turn have the best company name?

Personally, when I think of gold miners, I usually think of long bearded old men in overalls and a gold pan; maybe someone who talks with a whistle and lives in a shack.  Sure no one doubts that a gold miner’s life is difficult and you have to be a strong and tough individual to live in the wilderness and pan for gold but, I think it’s an odd choice.

ravens company logoThat said, the Ravens as a company name is not without its problems.  Edger Allen Poe only lived in Baltimore for one year, yes it was his last year, but that’s a good stretch, to claim the poet as your own.  But looking at the bird, which as has always had an association with evil, I think it’s a much more successful, name, brand and logo.

Ravens have an air of mystery about them, maybe evil and I would think that that’s the point.  They’re menacing looking and seem like a smart animal.

In the Company Naming Super Bowl, like the actual Super Bowl, the Ravens are going to have to take it.  If you’re interested in what we think makes a really good Football Related business name just follow the link.

If you think we’re wrong, please, we’re open to suggestions and would love to hear which team has the best company name or brand name.

Thanks for reading.

Twitt

Business Naming, Naming, Product Names

That’s What an Acronym Can Do, TMZ!

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do Acronyms make good business names

Check out that Company Acronym

Ever hear of Thirty Mile Zone, yea, we didn’t either but TMZ happens to one of our favorite programs right now.  We’re not proud but we do love it. The subject came up the other day in one of our daily company naming meetings about how an acronym can be a really exciting choice for a company name.

If you’re wondering what an acronym is, it’s a word created of usually the first letter or letters of a series of words.  For instance OPEC is really Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and SCUBA is Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

RQVO - great Acronym for a company name

If you’ve read our blog before you know that we’ve always promoted that the shorter the domain name the better and which would you remember better, SCUBA or Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus?  Which one would you more likely type correctly into a browser?  Which one makes the better domain name?

The research all agrees that the longer a domain name the more likely someone is to misspell or incorrectly type the company name so, that gets us back to acronyms.

ThirtyMileZone.com or TMZ.com?

The funny thing is, I just checked to make sure that TMZ also owned the domain name ThirtyMileZone.com and I was redirected to a search engine.  I realized that I had misspelled the word thirty and went to the wrong site, and that’s exactly the point; I proved my own point.

MRLQ - Acronyms make great company namesWe love acronyms but there are a few things you need to note:

It is better if you can create a new word like SCUBA and OPEC, TMZ is one that doesn’t but it still works, so it can be done and there are plenty more, TLC, ect.

It is really important that you own both domain names.  TMZ owns TMZ.com and ThirtyMileZone.com and it is important in case people reach you both ways.

You can incorporate the first letter “of” and “and” if you want to.  OPEC doesn’t use the “o” of the “of” but that’s a personal choice.  If you can make a word using it, do it.  SONAR for example SOund Navigation And Ranging, they use the “a” from “and;” without the “a” they’d be “Sonr.”  GNZI - Acronyms make great product names

So what do you think?  Do you like acronyms as a business name or hate them?  Do you know any good acronyms that we can discuss or acronym fails, or ones that don’t sound right, we’d love to hear them?

We’ve sprinkled some of the available business acronyms that we have from our site so please let us know if you’re interested or even if you like them or not.

Thanks for reading!

Twitt