Memorable Company Names

Memorable Company Names

A company name is a powerful tool which has the potential to make or break one’s business.  A memorable name will be there in the people’s mind forever. For example Xerox used to be called The Halloid company but then it changed its name to ‘Xerox’ and as we all know that the word photocopy was replaced by the word Xerox and even though the company experienced a bad phase after sustaining for a long time, but people still relate to the word Xerox as photocopy of the documents.

A great name has a potential to get an instant hit among the stakeholders and consumers and it triggers the growth of your business. There is no secret recipe for coming up with a memorable company name that is perfect and appealing to the masses. However, one should take care of a few things while formulating a name for his or her own company.

A memorable company name has a power to adhere to the minds of people. Hence while brainstorming a considerable amount of time should be allocated to coming up with names for the business. One should continue brainstorming even if he finds a suitable name. The litmus test for the owner here is that he should list down all the possible names coming to his mind and the names which he can recollect in the end without referring to the list are the ones he or she should consider for working on them further.

In today’s world, there is a lot to remember and a lot of information to process hence the shorter the name of the business the easier it will be for the customers to remember. For example company names like Nike, Apple, Pixar are single word short names and it is one of the reasons for its huge popularity among the masses.

In case of long names, the company must try to emphasize on the use of abbreviations instead of focusing on promoting the full name of the company. For example, GE stands for the world renowned company General Electric. The company’s branding strategy includes exhaustive use of the GE logo on its products but due to its strong appeal the customers have a strong recognition about the GE products, only by referring to the logo.

Some names are inspired from the instances or personalities who are associated with the businesses. The owner should identify such opportunities and adopt these names for their businesses. For example the Goodyear Tires & Rubber company found and named after Charles Goodyear, the American inventor who found the process to vulcanize the rubber and today the company is a public limited company and a big brand name.

Lastly, the out of box thinking of the owner does matter in coming up with a memorable company name. The owner should experiment with different words in different languages or try combining or modifying popular English words and invent a name derived from these words. The world renowned convenience store 7-Eleven was a sign to communicate to the customers their extended hours of 7:00 am to 11:00 pm. Similarly Accenture is derived from ‘Accent on future’.