What's in a name?

Shakespeare posed this question in "Romeo and Juliet," and answered it by saying that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. But a rose might not sound as good and ultimately create the same lovely impression with admirers if it was called say a "poisonflower". Not to contradict the Bard, but names matter! 

In the business world, the name of your business especially matters: it is the crucial first step in building your company's identity and a brand name that you hope will be embraced. There are billions of people and millions of businesses in the world, so choosing the unique name for your business is important.

Your business name ideally can be a reflection of who you are, what you aspire to and what you value. Or it could end up sounding like just another generic business name, one that doesn't help convey specialness in any way, which might be fine regardless but could represent a lost opportunity. It's a question of getting it just right: you want it to be memorable, relevant and evocative, but not so strange, off-putting or boring that it impacts your chances for success.

Jim Croce had a song called "I've Got a Name" ... and he sang about carrying it with him like his daddy did. The identity of your company - your brand - is long-lasting and very difficult and costly to change once you've established it, so choose wisely. In our local Biddeford and Saco region, there are over a thousand businesses, each with their own unique business name. It's fun and interesting (to me anyway, hopefully to you as well) to consider some of the compelling business name examples we have here.

FIrst off, since we're in Maine and the state abbreviation is "ME", we often come across somewhat playful variations on that theme. Two local businesses come immediately to mind: Thai Me and Whimsical Me. Are these names directly referencing Maine or does the name derive from some other interpretation perhaps? They've created a bit of mystery, not a bad thing. Also in a geographic context, our city names "Biddeford" and "Saco" are incorporated into a lot of business names, which makes a lot of sense for a company doing business locally. I like how Nibblesford came up with a variation on this approach and took the back part of the city's name vs. the front part to come up with their cheese store name. 

A clever or thought-provoking business name gets extra credit in my book. Can you think of a cooler name for a bookstore / coffee shop / beer purveyor than Elements with its periodic-table-like references to Bk Co Be? In a similar fashion, a cutely relevant name can be memorable and evoke positive connotations, like Back in Motion Physical Therapy. Dizzy Birds is a perfect name for a restaurant that roasts chickens on a rotating spit over an open flame.

 Beyond cleverness, some names just feel like they fit ideally - of course you'd want to go to Scrub-a-dub to get your car cleaned, and doesn't Trillium just sound like a place where you will get premium nature-inspired gifts? The Way-Way Store is both a local landmark and exactly the right name - it's way, way out of town!

Some of our local restaurants and breweries have singular names. Sacred Profane is one, referencing one of the great dualities in life, such as good and evil, or light and dark (which are perhaps not coincidentally the two styles of beer they brew). Cowbell leverages a famous Saturday Night Live skit - we could all use more cowbell! Likewise, Fish & Whistle pays homage to a John Prine song. Magnus on Water purportedly is a nod to a medieval person of note - if nothing else it sparks a question and generates some curiosity for anyone thinking of eating there.

Quality and personalization can often be subtly inferred from the name of a business. Most pizza places in the world are "Blank's Pizza", with the first word usually being the name of a person, place or some other attribute. In our area, we have interesting inversions of that general rule, like Pizza by Alex and Pizza by Michael. I like that creative little twist, it makes me think that the pizzas you are going to get at these places are made by a true culinary artist / artisan, individually interpreting the concept of pizza in their own unique and differentiating way. 

A funny thing about business names and brands is once they become very well-known, people tend to not even think about the actual words themselves, the name just gets attached to the place or the experience in our minds without much explicit thought. 

Our two longtime amusement parks in the area are kind of that way. When you hear "Funtown  Splashtown USA" or "Aquaboggan", you probably don't think much anymore about those specific names. But if you did, I bet you'd conclude that those are really great names for the core experiences they provide. Can you think of a better name than these? I can only come up with "FunCity  SplashCity" - basically the same thing.

Sometimes when it comes to naming businesses, the 'KISS' principle is best: KISS being an acronym for 'Keep It Simple Stupid'. One good local example of that principle is this online publication: Saco Bay News. The geography and the focus of the business are crystal clear, and a good "bridging" name for a business doing something others have done many times before (covering the news) but in a novel way (with only an online approach, for now anyway).

In third grade I was one of two "Jim's" in my class, so the teacher called me "Jim L" and the other one "Jim P". I liked mine better, it sounded to me like "Jimel", a wise visionary from the future, perhaps from the planet Krypton ("Superman? I KNOW him!"). As for "Jim P", his name made him sound jumpy, or like he always had to go to the bathroom (it was third grade after all). Did these two identities influence our future? Probably not, though I've always enjoyed futuristic sci-fi books and movies, and perhaps the other Jim has struggled with jitteriness or bathroom issues his whole life, we'll never know.

It's not just commercial businesses that need to spend quality time upfront focusing on their name. Non-profit organizations also begin to build and communicate their identity initially with the name they choose, which can quickly become short-hand for the mission they are undertaking. Are there two more perfectly named local non-profits than Heart of Biddeford and Seeds of Hope? They both directly convey what they are focused on, rationally and emotionally, and inspire people to want to be a part of such a meaningful effort. 

Lastly, let me turn the identity analytical spotlight on my own organizational brand. The name of the non-profit I work at is "The Biddeford and Saco Chamber of Commerce and Industry", a name that contains nine words, way too long in my opinion. Perhaps we should streamline it to something shorter and catchier, like "The B-S Chamber"? Oh wait, on second thought, maybe we'll keep it the way it is!

Jim LaBelle is the executive director of the Biddeford + Saco Chamber of Commerce and Industry.