What’s really in a name? How important is it that you pick the “right” name for your business? Will any name do?

Well, a lot is packed into a business name (or mark). Names matter. Labor over the name you choose, but also know that a lot of names will actually work. A name is more or less a starting place for people to encounter your brand. It is the label given to anything and everything your company is. So yes, pick a good name, a name you like, but also know that it’s on you to ongoingly define what the name actually means to people.

How do you define it? That part is up to you.

What do you want to be known for? Go do, show and tell people that.

You define it by your quality, your attention to detail, your customer experience, your timeliness, and the overall feeling that someone has when they interact with the fullness of your brand or business.

When it comes down to it, names help us bring clarity to our world of chaos. We are inundated with advertisements and brand names. At Pepperdine Law, my Intellectual Property professor told us that on average each individual encounters 1,500 trademarks (aka, names of companies or their products or services) each day. Without those names, we would just be processing jumbled messages of sales and calls to action. Names bring order. They give us a bucket to put all of our feelings, experiences, and stories we have heard about a company inside of – to help our brains categorize and make sense of them more simply, using fewer calories to think. This allows us to move quicker when making buying decisions.

For example, when we hear the business name, Starbucks, we know the quality of coffee and food we are going to get. We don’t have to do any research. We can make a buying decision based on a simple name encounter.

I don’t go to Starbucks unless it is the last viable option for decent coffee – usually, that means at the airport.

I’m willing to take a chance on a local coffee shop in an area I don’t know well because I’d rather support local small businesses, and most of the time I’ll get better coffee and food options (in my opinion 😉) . In Oceanside, I have a handful of go-to local coffee shops. I love my Vigilante, Bound, Communal, Seaborne, and Revolution Roasters. Those names may not mean anything to you if you don’t live in North County San Diego. That’s the power of a name. It only has power based on your awareness of it. You recognized Starbucks and had your preconceived thoughts about it, but my local coffee shops were just probably words to you.

To me, those local shops’ names are so much more. Each of them brings to mind a unique brand image, provides a different feel and environment from one another, and has distinct offerings specific to their coffee shop. All of them have great coffee and food, but they each give me something that only they can give. I “bucket” them based on their name and how they continue to serve me.

What a Strong Name Does for Your Business

In the simplest of terms, a name does 3 main things for your business:

Distinguishes your business (and products/services) from others
Creates brand/company awareness around what problem your business solves (i.e., what the name or mark stands for)
Generates goodwill for the service, product, and business.

*Goodwill: good feelings associated with a brand.

All this said, naming your business or product or service isn’t easy. There are a lot of names that could be great.

A Framework for Naming Your Business

We created a framework that helps brings some order to the naming process. If you find it helpful, then awesome!

There is no perfect name. There is no way to find the perfect name. Yet, we hope our model helps you rule out some names to select the one that feels like the best fit for you.

As you brainstorm, try to take the pressure off of yourself about this being the first point of contact with your brand and instead try to focus your energy on your brand values and allow those to help define and guide the name you choose.

That said, when you name your business (or product), you do have a lot of choices to make because there are a lot of factors that go into it, and as I’ve said already, the name signals a lot.

You have choices around:

Clarity
Mystery
Beign Unique + Distinctive
Being Common + Generic

You may have the goal or desire of adding an additional layer of mystery to your brand. That can totally work. Yet, we believe the sweet spot usually falls in the Clear and Unique quadrant.

Your choice will often depend on and be qualified by your industry and target market. The framework is helpful as a general rule of thumb, but sometimes the industry qualifies that general rule and there are exceptions to it. And, sometimes what’s clear in one industry is not clear in another industry.

As you know, we love disruption. We believe there is power in disrupting the status quo. Our name, Hoffbeck + Co isn’t inherently distinctive. It’s based on our last name which is a common choice for professional service and consulting firms. This isn’t all bad. It goes with the train of thought and familiarity that people have when encountering a company in our industry, which we’ve found to be beneficial. We could have chosen something more unique or distinct like Disruption Co, but overall we felt that wasn’t clear in relation to our industry.

Make Sure Your Legal Bases Are Covered

One final but very important layer to name selection falls under IP law. We aren’t lawyers and don’t offer legal advice, but my legal background gave me a general understanding of the trademark landscape.

In general, you want to pick a name that is inherently distinctive and unique to your industry. This will allow you the opportunity to have exclusive rights to use the name/mark in commerce, and it will grant you the ability to stop others from using the same mark. A number of factors go into whether you have enforcement rights over preventing someone from using the name you select (or whether someone can stop you from using a certain name/mark).

Here are some of those factors to consider:

The similarity of marks already being used
The proximity of goods or services – if distant product/services markets exist between names/marks, the likelihood of confusion will be low and the two marks may be able to coexist
Evidence of actual confusion based on the names
Example: Nike – if you created a company called Nikey and sold similar products, then Nike would likely be able to prevent you from doing so. The courts want to reduce the likelihood of confusion in the marketplace. The more likely your product or service name or mark is similar to another in a closely related offering, the more likely it will create confusion and could be prevented by an earlier trademark holder in the space.
Strength of the earlier mark
Customer sophistication
Marketing channels used by the parties
The intent of the second user of the proximity mark

Quick Checklist When Choosing a Business Name

Here are some quick ways to see if your name or mark is likely “available” or not already used by someone that could prevent you from using the name. You want these results to come back with nothing, or at least with a product or service that is far removed from your industry or offering.

Google search the name
Search social media accounts and handles (Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
Search your state’s business name search – Example: CA SOS here
USPTO Trademark search here

As always, when it comes to the legal side of things, connect with your attorney for legal advice. If you need help finding an attorney, just let us know and we can point you in the right direction.

In summary, names are important. They conjure up thoughts, feelings, memories, beliefs, and values. Pick a great name, but spend more of your effort in the ongoing investment of defining what that name actually means to the people you want it to connect with.