Five Dangerous Myths About Naming Your Company, Business, Product or Service

I'm not sure why, but naming a new business or product trips up a lot of otherwise smart, level-headed entrepreneurs. Here are five dangerous myths that can send your naming process straight to nowheresville or even to hell.

Myth #1: The name "will just hit me" when I come up with the right one.

This myth hinders business owners from two sides. First, it prevents people from recognizing a highly appropriate name when they do come up with it. And second, it can lead them to embrace a name that is disastrous for their ultimate success.

Your own enthusiasm is never a reliable indicator of the name you should choose. Keep in mind that you're naming the item to attract your customers, who may have preferences that don't match yours. Instead of waiting for the ideal name to smack you like a comic book POW!, create a set of criteria and run your name candidates through that list. Names that pass those criteria become your finalists.

You do not have to be wildly in love with the name you ultimately choose. You only need to feel it works from every point of view.

Myth #2: If we get stuck, we should run a contest.

Naming contests can indeed help turn up some possible names you might never have thought up. However, some companies think that along with requesting name possibilities, they should ask people in their company or the public at large to vote on the names submitted and that they should select the most popular name.

Never, never submit names to a vote. As explained above, enthusiasm leads people to overlook terrible weaknesses in names, such as being hard to pronounce or spell or being too close to a name used by a competitor. You should always entrust naming to a group or committee who have a list of selection criteria for the name.

Myth #3: Acronyms are adorable and memorable.

Some people believe that acronyms like BETA or LIPSY are cuddly and appealing, and they therefore strain to come up with a combination of words for their organization that abbreviates cutely. This is a lousy naming strategy. Most people find acronyms cold and reminiscent of bureaucracies. In addition, it's highly unlikely that you'll come up with an acronym that's not already in use in dozens of other contexts.

For example, according to the web directory All Acronyms, the letters NSA stand for more than 100 different entities, including No Such Agency. Let's say you added something to an acronym and named your company SME Services, thinking of "Small and Medium-sized Enterprises." SME still refers to more than 60 other meanings in common usage, including Subject Matter Expertise and Solid Metal Embrittlement.

Myth #4: If you're tired of it, you should change the name.

Simply being tired of the name yourselves is the worst possible motivation for changing a name. Remember that those inside a company encounter the name many times more often than customers and the general public do. If they're not tired of it, changing the name scuttles your hard-won brand equity and makes you start all over again to earn market recognition.

Do consider changing your name if it appears outmoded, if it's being confused with a competitor's name, or if the name no longer fits what you're now selling. If you're simply tired of the name, take a vacation instead of changing it.

Myth #5: A good place to save money during naming is on legal review.

Even bootstrappers have gotten tangled up in their laces when following this principle. Dispensing with a legal review for a new company name or product name puts your organization at risk. Receiving a "cease and desist" letter from another company's attorney is in fact the #1 reason clients hire my naming company to find a new name.

Not only does this force you to come up with a new name very fast, it means you have to throw away all your business cards, brochures, stationery, etc. and spend money on a new logo, new Internet domain, letters to customers explaining your name change, and much more. Hiring an attorney now to make sure your name is reasonably safe from legal challenges prevents higher, more painful expenditures later.

Be safe! Be savvy! Avoid these myths to select names you can prosper with.