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Names
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I've been thinking about the way names work since
I was 14. Not people's names so much as names of products, services,
rock bands — you know, names of brands.
For fifteen years I was actively involved in thinking up names
for rock bands — bands I dreamt of and bands I was actually
in. Thinking up the name was one of the most fun parts about
being in a band. Smelly Elevators. Periodic Minestrone. Puke
Your Guts Out. Oh, it was fun.
It was during those 15 years that I had my first big insight
regarding names. I slowly came to realize that, though the name
of the band initially may have some meaning separate of the
band, over time the name takes on the meaning of the band. When
you hear the name the Beatles, you don't think of beetles. You
think of the Beatles. For REM devotees, the name stopped meaning
"rapid eye movement" a long time ago. Steely Dan was
the name of a dildo. Now it means the band which somehow won
a Grammy for best album this year with a stale collection of
warmed over rehashed rejects from their last album 20 years
ago. And that album wasn't so hot to begin with. But I digress.
The same holds true for other brand names. Think about Motorola,
for instance. The quintessential early 20th century name. Motorola
was originally the name of a car radio. Today their business
no longer focuses on car radios. It is involved in more far-reaching
forms of communication. The name currently means what the company
does now. Over time, as Motorola's business has evolved, shifted,
expanded, so has the meaning of the name. Meanwhile, the name
has picked up a ton of brand equity (and some baggage as well).
That equity is an invaluable aspect of the name's meaning, and
transcends any momentary association with a particular business
or product. The shadow cast by Motorola's brand equity eclipses
Iridium and its ilk.
So can you name your company or product anything you want, because
no matter the name, inevitably it will come to take on the meaning
of your company or product in time? Not necessarily. It helps
if, somehow, there exists the slightest thread of connection
between the name and what you want the brand to represent. Apple
and Nike, of course, are the perennial prime examples. Even
names from the old days, as chest-beaterly as they were, tried
to mean something positive or distinctive or even attitudinal
about the brand. Crest. Rambler. Lava. Wisk. Zenith. Duz.
It seems the world has gone mad lately, coming up with names.
This madness takes several forms. Some companies are caught
up in an ever-escalating attempt to be hip/attention grabbing/provocative/intriguing.
Here are some such examples from the production world: Bravo
Zulu, Two Popes, Ponder Peliculas, Nydrle. No doubt these names
have some intended meaning. And if they were rock bands, I'd
say more power to them. Go ahead. Be impossibly obscure. But
these are businesses. They're going to have to work extra hard
to inject the desired meaning into these names, because the
names themselves give us no hint, no boost, no head start. Meanwhile,
there is the risk that what passes for hip today will likely
come back to bite them in the passe´ tomorrow.
Other companies fall for the name-generating machine approach.
Choose a bunch of words, prefixes, suffixes, syllables, related
to what your company aspires to represent. Then recombine them
in a million ways and hope you wind up with something that looks,
sound and feels something like your company, or sums up your
vision. Whether this process is computer driven, or generated
by humans, the result is usually a mess. I nominate Covisint
as the perfect example. Some others for your entertainment:
Aon, Aventis, Visteon. Occasionally, and unfortunately, this
approach can be qualifiedly successful, i.e., Accenture, Genuity,
Lucent. I say unfortunately because it just encourages others
to use this approach.
Then there are the Age of Huh? entries. Let's look at Old Kent
Bank, for instance. Given that you've got a bank named after
a stale cigarette, it's understandable you might want to change
that name. Banks used to put one and first and America in their
names a lot. However, all the smaller numbers have apparently
been used up. Because Old Kent is now called Fifth Third Bank.
Fifth Third Bank? Huh? Not Fifty-third bank? Or just Third Bank?
What does Fifth Third even mean? Maybe the people who came up
with the name were, out of desperation, working on their third
fifth of the night, so they named the bank in its honor. But,
of course being tanked, they got the name mixed up. Just try
saying that name out loud. But be careful not to get your diphthongs
in a bunch.
Finally, there are the companies and products with meaningless
letters for names. Some used to stand for something: IBM, NCR,
USG, HP, UPS. Maybe they can be excused. But the ones that never
meant anything have a tough time taking on meaning. PSEG. SAS.
CNF. PPL. BEA. HUH? These letters may stand for something, but
who knows, or cares, what? On their own, they have no meaning.
They're just letters.
We can only hope that American businesses will get over these
ill-conceived approaches to name-picking, and pursue more grounded
names, names that have something to do with the enterprise in
which they participate. Names like Screen. And Communicaterer. |
