U.S. Small Business Administration

What's in a name?  A commercial identity.  For the name you select for your business, product or service explains who you are or what you sell.  It identifies what sets you apart in the marketplace.  It helps determine how you're perceived.  Which means you've got to find a name that communicates exactly the right message.

You can generate names on your own or consult an ad agency, design house or marketing firm that specializes in naming.  Either way, it's best to begin by examining the commercial names around you and evaluating their effectiveness.  Look at car names, for example, and think about what they mean and why, from a marketing standpoint, they were chosen.

So first immerse yourself in names, and then start your own naming process.

Generating Names for Businesses

In today's crowded and competitive environment, a new company called "Standard," like the oil, or "Campbell," like the soup, would hardly be noticed.  But other established names such as Rubbermaid, Rent-A-Wreck and Holiday Inn might, for the simple reason that these names communicate an enduring concept -- a marketing position or corporate personality.

Accordingly, the first step in generating company names is to pinpoint three to five attributes or benefits -- marketing positionings -- that make your company special.  These could be a hot-button feature common to all your products or services, the range or specialization of your inventory, or key user benefits such as economy or peace of mind -- reasons, in short, for customers to decide to choose you over the competition.

Consider, as well, three to five personality traits you might want to communicate, such as friendliness, skill, innovation or elegance, focusing on qualities your target customers will appreciate.  There's light-heartedness, for example, in the names of the massage center Nice to Be Kneaded and the computer consulting firm Rent-a-Nerd.

For each benefit or personality trait, make a list of all the names that come to mind.  These may be words or phrases associated with the benefit or trait.  Or they may be words for ideas or objects that evoke that trait or benefit the way the clothing store Headlines, for example, evokes newness and excitement and the California high-tech firm Oracle evokes visionary power.

If you want your name to include your type of organization (e.g., "company," "group," "corporation," "electrical supply"), try out the names you generate with your organizational word to make sure you have pairs that work together.

Generating Names for Products and Services

Like company names, names for products and services may express a benefit to customers or a personality trait.  More than with companies, however, product and service names must be strongly competitive.  So use market research to focus on qualities that demonstrably motivate sales or counteract buyer resistance, as evident in names such as Ziploc, FunSaver, Energizer and Nice 'n Easy.  Also, know the competition thoroughly so that your name communicates an advantage others do not, or expresses the same advantage even more compellingly.

Finally, decide on a word or phrase that identifies your product or service, such as "health snack" or "payroll service," and make sure the names you generate sound right with these identifiers.

Think About How It Looks

Sometimes a name is successful because it's paired with an effective visual image.  For example, Berkeley Learning Technologies shows its name with a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich, while Turtlewax explains the logic of its name with the image of a hard-shelled turtle.

Typeface also makes a difference, setting a tone that can carry as much meaning as the words themselves.  Script, for example, is often used to convey elegance, reinforcing that aspect of the name or giving a not-particularly-elegant name a new dimension.

Prepare and Test a Shortlist

With at least two other people, go through all the names generated and narrow them down to 10-15 candidates.  It's helpful to write the names on index cards and keep the cards displayed over the course of days so you can live with the names and get to know them.

When judging names, be sure to say them aloud.  Could receptionists happily answer the phone all day with that company name?  Is a product or service name one you'd feel comfortable asking for in stores or by phone?  If you're contemplating a cute name, is it an in-joke or will it grow stale over time?  And will a company name remain appropriate if you expand?

After you finalize your shortlist of names, test them out on at least 30 strangers -- ideally in focus groups convened by an ad agency or marketing firm.  Ask these people not only their order of preference but also what each name connotes, and give more weight to the opinions of potential customers.

Finally, after assembling all this information, decide on a list of six or more top choices, and put them through a trademark search to determine if they're already trademarked or available for use.

Trademarking Your Name

Trademarking your name can be time-consuming because many good names are already taken; you may have to keep returning to square one.  You'll save time if your naming company, or attorney, can do a computer search of already-registered trademarks; otherwise, your recourse is simply to mail in your trademark application and wait for a response.  Note that you must apply to your state's trademark office and, if you'll be using the trademark for interstate commerce, to the federal office as well.

After registering your trademark, you'll need to protect it from becoming so ordinary a word that at renewal time, in 10 years, a competitor can argue it has become too generic to merit your company's exclusive, protected use.  That's why, for example, Levi Strauss calls its product "Levi's" jeans' -- which makes Levi's a type of jeans ("jeans" is the identifier), not another word for jeans.  The name is always capitalized, and unauthorized use is prevented.  In short, Levi Strauss guards its name's specialized and exclusive reference to its product.  For commercial names are not simply words, they are assets as well.

Name Change Helps Wine Sales Soar

For several years Rene Barbier Red Table Wine, imported from Spain, had sold only 4,000 - 5,000 cases annually.  Sales were so flat, in fact, that distributors threatened to discontinue stocking the product.

Then David Brown, marketing director at Freixenet USA, the Sonoma, California importer of Rene Barbier wines, had an idea.  He changed the bottle from green to clear glass and told the winemakers to create a younger, fruitier wine.

His next step was to change the name.  Capitalizing on the fact that wines from Mediterranean countries capture more than 70 percent of the U.S. market, and guided by the explosion of interest in Mediterranean cooking and restaurants, Brown created a new category of wine:  Mediterranean wine, embracing the entire region.  Out of this came "Rene Barbier Mediterranean Red" -- complete with a beckoning table-by-the-sea label.

The result?  Orders for 140,000 cases after only nine months.  And the orders just keep flowing.

A Lawyer's Advice on Trademarks

What's the advantage in trademarking your name?  In a word, protection.

"The law works to protect the investment you make in promoting your name," explains attorney Tim Hale of Russo & Hale in Palo Alto, California.  "Registering your trademark establishes not only your ownership of the mark, but also your exclusive right to use it in commerce."

Another purpose of the law, Hale continues, is to prevent confusion in the marketplace over products, services or companies with similar names.  Names, words or symbols, or their combination, will receive Patent and Trademark Office approval only if they meet the following criteria:

• Distinctiveness.  Trademarks must be so different from already-registered marks that the public is unlikely to be confused.  The trademark office considers numerous "distinctiveness" criteria, including resemblance to marks on similar goods and services, the likelihood of confusion under anticipated selling conditions, and the fame of similar marks currently in use.
• Departure from mere description.  Trademarks must go beyond generic descriptions such as "Digital Engineering," geographic descriptions like "Golden State" and, unless they're long associated with that product, family names or initials.  All are so commonplace that it would be unreasonable to give them protected, exclusive-use, trademark status.

In addition, proposed trademarks may not be "immoral, scandalous or deceptive" -- one example of deception being the image of a stretched hide used in connection with non-leather products.

State and federal governments have separate trademark offices requiring separate applications.  For both, you must meet the office's distinctiveness and other name criteria; show that your mark is affixed directly to your product, or printed on business cards or letterhead; and demonstrate actual commercial use of the mark.  "Actual use" requires proof of within-state or, for federal registration, interstate sales.  The federal trademark office will accept an "intent to use," rather than proof of actual use, as long as evidence of actual use follows within six months -- which may be extended to 18 months.

Approximately three months after filing your application, you'll receive a certificate of registration or, more frequently, a denial on specific grounds.  A solidly reasoned response often reverses a ruling, notes Hale, although companies may have to narrow their trademark use to commercial sub-areas where their mark can be cleared – confining themselves, for example, to "handmade clothing" instead of the broader "children's clothing."

For international trademark protection, Hale recommends registering in foreign countries within six months of registration in the U.S. – an arrangement that, by international treaty, provides protection in that country from the date of U.S. protection.

Finally, back in the U.S., your trademark needs renewal every 10 years.  Between the fifth and sixth year of this period, you or your lawyer must file an affidavit with the Patent and Trademark Office stating that the mark is still in use.  Without this affidavit, your trademark will automatically be canceled.  File the renewal application itself within six months before the mark expires.  At this time a mark may be contested -- often because another company argues that it has become generic.  Thus trademark holders must be vigilant about protecting their names from becoming ordinary words.

*Excerpted with permission from "Small Business Success" magazine, Volume 7, produced by Pacific Bell Directory in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Partners for Small Business Excellence.