Below are 10 categories of variables and tips to help you open your search for your company name or to ponder when contemplating a name change.
- Local factors.
Northwest Embroidery came up #1 for the term “Embroidery”
The geography, culture, history, landmarks, flora and fauna, and cli mate of the pri mary trading area or targeted market or market niches. Names derived from such attributes tend to endure and usually are far stronger than the names or i nitials of the owner or owners.Missouri Cotton Exchange, Red Brick Clothing and Skipjack Custom Apparel are perfect examples.
- Personal factors. Your interests, special talents, family background or ethnicity, personal achievements, favorite pets, some important event in your life or a special period or experience, and your passions.Alpine Graphic Apparel and Wingman Apparel fit this concept well.
- Matters of convenience and other customer-friendly and professional attributes. Speed, quality, service, status, and performance. Names like ProMark and One-Stop Fashion Imprintables, FastSigns, and Jiffy Lube illustrate the concept.
- Market-oriented factors. Related to business, schools, organizations, government, events, athletics, leisure and recreation industries. Names such as Team Spirit Promotions, Military Outfitters. and Mark’s Work wear (a franchise company in Canada), are good examples.
- Positive, uplifting, aspirational, inspirational, innovative, exciting attributes. Superior, premier, peak, reputation, first, excellence, winning/winner, triumph, forward, advance, professional, challenge, and power are words that stimulate further thinking and lead to other routes in lots of different directions. Sometimes a turn off the main road, as you know, can result in wonderful surprises! Higher Ground Designs, New Age Fashions, and High Peak Sportswear are illustrative here.
- Fun stuff.
Northwest Embroidery Logo created by Fiverr, on overseas logo creation company
Magic, enchantment, wizardry, animals, literary characters, movies, goofy names, and the like will get you headed in the right direction here. Two favorites of mine are the names of a retail client in Arlington, Vi rginia -Ballyhoo! — and a powerhouse apparel decorating client in Columbia. South Carolina — Eat More Tees.
- Application-related. Corporate identification, advertising, uniforms, awards and incentives. promotion-oriented, giftware, fundraising, recruitment, spirit and pride. AdWear PromoNons, Winning Ways Awards & Engraving, and Executive Gifts On Demand tell the story here.
- Garment specialization. Infants and juveniles, children, seniors, plus sizes, maternity, outdoor, uniforms Planet Baby Clothing and Accessories. North Face Apparel, and Mom-to-Be for example.
- Invented, Crafted, Hybrid, and High-Tech Sounding Names. lf you can develop a good one, it works, though finding and creating such names is a whole lot easier said than done to get one that Such names include crafted nomenclature such as MicroSoft, Veri=on. HoopMaster, America Online, ShopWorks. Frigidaire (for ”frigid air,” invented a million years ago!), Mediacom, Accuweather. Xerox, iPod. among hundreds of others you’ve heard of.
- One-word names already in the language. These are words or terms that have been around for years or forever, but are claimed by a business or product to brand or title something altogether different from the original meaning. Some might con note something good or positive in its new incarnation. Think of how one came about, intuitive or otherwise, and try to understand it. Genius world-class example, you ask? One word: Google! Google is a brand, of course, but today has in its decade or so of existence earned the status of a verb in the English language. Other good examples include Amazon, Bing, Apple, and Blackberry.