Welcome to Company Name Generator Blog.

In the last post we have been talking about low cost means of making your company name known after you have chosen the appropriate one for your business. We also promised a sequel, so here it is.

Other ways of promoting your company name include also, for example, finding a great thing about what you do, or your products, and “bragging” about it. You can send out press releases to newspapers, radios, TV stations whose audiences are part of your target audience as well.

Another great idea is to offer to become a speaker on subjects using your area of expertise. There are many forums, libraries, etc, that need specialist as speakers. If you are really good at this you could even get paid and also make your company name and products/services known.

Whatever vehicles your company uses, be sure to paint on them your company name and the contact information, this way being able to advertise while driving. It may sound funny, but it works.

In addition to selling your products on you own, look for existing mail order companies that would be willing to include your products in their catalogs, or for distributors or sales agents who would be willing to take over sales chores for you. Be sure your pricing structure allows for the fees or commissions you will have to pay on any sales that are made.

These are other effective and low cost ways to promote your company name.

OK so you finally came up with a great company name and also a logo that is truly representative for your business. Now, in order for everything to be perfect, you, of course, have to make your company name thus your business known.

In this post we are going to give you a few hints on how to do that without going bankrupt!

The first step is to create business cards and stationary with your company name and logo on them. After you’ve printed the business cards, make sure they get into as many hands as possible. You can give a stack to your family and friends so they can pass them on. Also, the people you buy products or services could be of big use. They are helpful because they interact with so many people who might need the services of products your company provides and can slip them one of your business cards.

Also, don’t miss any meetings of professional groups, computer user groups and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, or civic associations. Here you can also give away a few business cards and meet people who need what you provide.

There are a few more ways of making your company name known, all of which we will discuss in our next posts. Stay tuned!

There may be times when you’ll find yourself in the situation of having to change your company name. Although it is not advisable, there may be situations that require this change such as: your current name no longer reflects the focus of the business or could be misleading to your target audience, bad publicity, merges, targeting a new customer base and the list could go on.

We are not going to talk about how to find a new company name since we covered that in the former posts. We are, though, going to give you some advice on what it is important to do after the change has been made and you have a brand new company name.

You will need to start an entire marketing and PR process in order to make your clients and the general public aware of the change. Starting from the logo to the business cards. But the big steps are easy to remember. Here’s a list of things that might slip your mind but that are important to be done when you have changed your company name:

• update your website after you have got the domain for the new name and you redirected the old site
• send a letter that informs about the change to your clients ( former, current and potential) but also to your vendors
• order a new sign to replace the one in front of your building with the old company name on it
• change the voice mail message
• write a press release informing about the change and why it was made
• update your listings in directories
• buy mouse pads, pens, t-shirts with the new company name

There are a few hints on what to do when you have decided to change your company name and with for the transition to be a successful one.

We have been talking about the importance of a good company name and the means to find one that best suits your business. While this is one of the important elements, the brand logo is another crucial variable in the success of your business.

As we did when trying to give you tips on how to find a good company name, giving you examples, here are a few logos that we think to be not only great as a design but also ingenious due to the message they deliver:

1.The Amazon Logo

Although it seems to be a clean and simple logo, if you look at it more attentively you will notice that the arrow goes from a to z symbolizing that amazon.com has everything from a to z. Also, the arrow creates a sort of a smile which represents the satisfaction shown on their customers faces.

2.Toblerone logo

You probably never gave too much attention to the logo when eating the delicious chocolate, and looked at it in passing thinking “Oh, the Alps”. If you’ll look closer, you’ll see there’s more to it than that. In the image there is a bear, tribute to the city of origin of the company named “City of bears”.

3.Heart Beats logo

I believe this to be a great logo. As you can see, it is linked to the company name and in a very expressive way. There are two musical notes bent together forming a heart but they also look like a set of headphones. The message “Love for music”.

4.Google logo

This is the logo that Google used when they celebrated its 25 years of TCP/IP. As you may see, the logo hides the year 2008. Nice huh?

So, don’t forget, besides the company name, also focus on the brand logo!

Although it may be the easiest and fastest way for you to finally come up with a company name, the use of acronyms is not the best idea. We know that the process of finding a great company name can be difficult, soliciting and also time consuming but it’s worth it at the end.

Many companies manage to find the phrase that best describes their work and get stuck here. So, in order for things to go forward as fast as possible, they opt for the acronym. Company names such as Web Design Studio sound pretty common so for a little boost some could change it into WDS. And why not do it? If IBM and KFC pulled it off, so can you, right? Wrong! Unless you have the financial power to market your business as well as these two, you may encounter lots of difficulties.

Here are the main problems you will confront with when choosing acronyms for your company name:

SEO troubles

Here’s a test. Choose any three letters and type them into Google. A lot of companies who tried the same thing as you, right? You must understand that ranking acronym brand names, especially for new brands is extremely difficult. Also, for the majority of the companies, their top 10 keywords that bring visitors to their site are brand related. Imagine keywords for WDS. Further more, think of the ads you may run on TV, radio or banners. The customers remember your name, go home, google the acronym and get… oh so many results that they might even quit before getting to your website.

Domain Name troubles

The domain is most certainly going to cost a lot. Thinking that you may go for the extended version of the company name is wrong because it will make things even worse. If you promoted the company under WDS, but the domain is webdesignstudio.com, then you may end up with a bunch of pretty confused people.

Legal troubles

Assuming that WDS is going to become a highly successful company with a powerful brand, how are you going to protect that brand? Attorneys say that unless the mark is virtually ubiquitous, enforcing a mark like WDS is very difficult.

So, unless you want to deal with these sort of problems, put a bit more thought and consideration into the process of creating your company name.

We have been discussing in the last posts about the best ways to choose your company name, using examples to emphasize the main ideas, and we also suggested, when in lack of inspiration, to use our tool, the Company Name Generator.

Now, we would like to take a different approach to the subject, talking about things one should NOT do when trying to come up with a brand/company name.

1.Don’t involve everyone in the decision

Although the tendency is to consult a lot of people in order to get as many ideas as possible, this is not the best way to go. First of all, you have to choose only one name and so you risk alienating the people around you who may have suggested other names. Secondly, you may find yourself accepting a consensus decision and ending up with a company name that might be quite “colorful”. If you have to involve more people, be sure that those that participate in the decision making process are  the people who have the company’s interest at heart and are rather imaginative.

2.Don’t use plain words

You want your company to stand out and your company name is one way of doing this, but using plain words in creating one is not going to do the trick. Sure, if you are General Motors, you can afford it, but when starting rather small, with many competitors, catchy words is the way to go.

3.Don’t use the geographical area where you develop your business in the name of your company

This is quite a common mistakes that if at first might not affect your business, it probably will as the company grows. Why? Because it limits your area of activity. Take for example Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are well known and sell their products world-wide under the KFC name. They chose to use the initials so that it will de-emphasize the regional nature of the name.

4.Don’t choose an obscure company name just because it’s special

Of course, all companies want a name that is one of a kind and makes a statement, but going over the edge is not a good idea. Clearly, an interesting company name which even has a story behind it is great, but if it is hard to remember, pronounce or spell then you are in trouble.

That is the case of VOLVO. When you hear this name you instantly think of words like safety, quality, concern for the envirnoment, family car, and the list could go on. But did you ever wonder how the guys at VOLVO came up with the company name?  “Volvere” is the infinitive form of the word “roll” in latin. In its singular form, “volvere” becomes “volvo” which stands for “i roll”. Interesting isn’t it?  The idea came from a smart member of the company’s management who also stated that writing the name in capital letters will have a greater impact, and right he was.

The choice for the company name was smart for severan reasons. First of all, it has a symbolic connection to the companys activity domain. Secondly, it is simple and easy to pronounce in almost every language and even more, it is slightly probable to get misspelled.   Another smart thing that VOLVO did was to register the name covering a wide range of different products linked to their activity domain that at that time didn’t even exist: “Ball bearings, roller bearings, machines, transmissions, automobiles, bicyles, railway materiel, transportation devices, means of transport of all kinds and parts of and accessories for the aforementioned products”. By doing this they made sure that the company name would cover any produt that they may develop in the future and would have the freedom to use the name for it.

Since VOLVO was born, over 15 million cars bearing its name have been produced and also millions of trucks, buses, engines and so on. Is it possible for Evald Delmar, the engineer who signed the application documents for the company name, to have foreseen the important role he would play in creating what was to become a global industrial concern whose name is still well-known all around the world more than 90 years later?

A successful company has a successful company name. That is the case of VOLVO. When you hear this name you instantly think of words like safety, quality, concern for the environment, family car, and the list could go on. But did you ever wonder how the guys at VOLVO came up with the company name?

“Volvere” is the infinitive form of the word “roll” in Latin. In its singular form, “volvere” becomes “volvo” which stands for “i roll”. Interesting isn’t it?  The idea came from a smart member of the company’s management who also stated that writing the name in capital letters will have a greater impact, and right he was!

The choice for the company name was smart for several reasons. First of all, it has a symbolic connection to the company’s activity domain. Secondly, it is simple and easy to pronounce in almost every language and even more, it is slightly probable to get misspelled.

Another smart thing that VOLVO did was to register the name covering a wide range of different products linked to their activity domain that at that time didn’t even exist: “Ball bearings, roller bearings, machines, transmissions, automobiles, bicycles, railway materiel, transportation devices, means of transport of all kinds and parts of and accessories for the aforementioned products”. By doing this they made sure that the company name would cover any product that they may develop in the future and would have the freedom to use the name for it.

Since VOLVO was born, over 15 million cars bearing its name have been produced and also millions of trucks, buses, engines and so on. Is it possible for Evald Delmar, the engineer who signed the application documents for the company name, to have foreseen the important role he would play in creating what was to become a global industrial concern whose name is still well-known all around the world more than 90 years later?

Have you ever wondered how companies have come up with their names, or what does a company name stand for? There are lots of companies that are known world wide and just by mentioning their name you can instantly visualize their logo, products or any other element that is relevant and linked to the name. We have briefly talked about the importance of choosing a good company name and also the elements that need to be taken into account for the success of the business/product when choosing it.

Here is how some of the big companies chose their names:

We all like them , wear them and instantly can identify the type of products they create when we hear “Adidas”. The story behind the company name? Not much to tell: Adolf (ADI) DASsler. See what they did? There are many others who chose their company name after the names of their founders such as the car manufacturer Chrysler whose founder was Walter P. Chrysler, Citroen after André-Gustave Citroën, The Walt Disney Company form the co-founder Walt Disney, and the list could go on.

Carrefour, the big chain of supermarkets got it’s name after the place where the first store was opened: a crossroads – carrefour in french. How about that?

Other companies choose use acronyms. There are lots and lots of such examples: Fiat – Fabrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory of Turin), IBM – International Business Machines, ESPN – Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, DKNY – Donna Karen New York, and so on.

Some companies choose names for their products or the company itself that have an interesting meaning in their language or a foreign one. Hyunday for example, in Korean, means “the present age” or “modernity”. The same thing works for Daewoo that means “Great Universe”. AltaVista is also a company name chosen on the same criteria, meaning “High View” in Spanish.

Yahoo has a nice story! The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in Guliver’s Travels, representing a person who is repulsive in appearance and barely human. David Filo and Jerry Yang, Yahoo founders, considered themselves yahoos, hence the name. Viewed form another point of view, Yahoo is also an interjection associated with US Southerners’ and Westerners’ expression of joy, that’s why you can hear someone singing “Yahoo” at the end of their commercials.

This is how some big companies chose their names. If you find yourself  lacking inspiration use our Company Name Generator!