Last updated on September 22nd, 2017 at 11:03 pm

As noted in this article, your brand name says a lot about your business. The article pertains to a career management site with the unique name of JibberJobber. The primary thrust of the article is to show some of the names which were considered before the unique name was chosen. But what the article also points out is the power of a unique and easily remember-able name in branding. If the name is evocative enough, you can connect a word or brand to your product, even if its only tangentially related to the product.

To me this is the telling part of the article:

“And with regard to not “meaning anything,” I wonder what the following company names meant before they were branded:

• Dogpile
• Amazon
• Nike
• Yahoo
• Google
• … the list could go on and on.

Of course, they mean something to you now, right?”

On the surface, these names have very little to do with the products they are attached to. Look at Google for example. Google is a nonsense word, a misspelling of a mathematical term for the number 1, followed by 100 zeroes. Though one could argue that there is a logic to relating a mathematic search engine to a math term, the word as spelled means nothing. While it is true that the primary reason for Google’s success was its easy to use interface and revolutionary for the time search algorithm, it is not too far fetched to argue that the name was part of the reason as well. Google’s a nonsense word, but its easy to remember and due to strong marketing its become associated with the action of searching the web. Again, the strength of the product helped, but I’m not as sure people would have remembered the product as readily if they called it “New Algorithm Search Engine” or “Simple Interface Search” or even Googol (the proper spelling of the term).

The shoe company Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory, is another example cited by the article. There is at best a tangential relationship between an athletic shoe and a Greek goddess. Moreover, its more than likely that very few people realize that the name has mythological significance. But since the name was so easily remembered and has been so well advertised with celebrity endorsements and such, that it has significance well beyond its mythological roots.

This is not to say that every business should go out and find a nonsense word or a obscure reference to use as a name for their company. You probably don’t want to name your auto repair shop or law office with a nonsense word. But what we can take from this is that by finding an unique name and tying it to your business, you can help increase awareness of your brand and carve out your own place in the marketplace.

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