What’s In A Name?

Two friends of mine are expecting a baby any day now. They know it’s a girl and, as their last name is Barr, I’ve begged them to name her Tiki. Regardless, I’ll probably call the baby Tiki. Because I can. 

In all seriousness, though, picking the right name is an important task for a parent. This is what the child will be known as, what people will call her and will serve as the basis for potential teasing as a child. If I had a dime for every jackass who walked up to me in school and said, “Jason Falls down!” I could take you to dinner.

Naming is also an important step for your brand, business or product. It should easily communicate who you are and what you do, or at least arouse curiosity from prospective customers so they want to learn more about your story — whether it’s complete bullshit or not.

American Airlines is a simple, easy-to-understand business name. Adobe Photoshop is a similarly named product.

Aetna is not, but has a classical tone to it that might make one ask, “What does that mean?” Galaxy Tab is a similarly named product. You don’t know what it is, but it certainly intrigues you.

Heather Whaling’s Geben Communication is named such because geben means “to give” in German, which is a neat underline for her agency’s service to non-profits and giving spirit. That’s a cool story to tell and opens doors for her firm.

In 2009, as my friend Rob May’s startup was gaining traction, he realized he needed to re-name his product. While “Lifestream Backup” made a lot of sense to people in the social media space, investors and those not as social-friendly thought he sold outdoor equipment. After some thoughtful consideration, Backupify was born. That name conjures up both the explanation and some playful curiosity.

As the social technology space gets more crowded, software platforms have emerged with great names: HubSpot, Spredfast, TweetDeck. And some with very intriguing ones: Expion, Hoop.la. There are also ones that make me scratch my head: Sysomos, Syncapse, Uber, Crimson Hexagon.

Even more confusing are the product names and feature sets. I came across one recently that had a great name, but upon further review, was totally underserving the feature set. HubSpot’s new “Social Inbox” is aptly named, but since other social monitoring and social management companies have been selling a “social inbox” for a couple of years, we’re conditioned to think this is a place where you see all your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other network messages in one place.

HubSpot’s “Social Inbox” is far more sophisticated, though. It actually delivers on the promise of tying in CRM and marketing automation with a social inbox to create an incredibly powerful communications hub for your social engagement. If I were naming it, I would scoff at “Social Inbox” and call it something like Social Control Center or Central Nervous System or something far more inspiring.

(If HubSpot wants me to actually name it, it’ll cost more than a subscription to my blog. Heh.)

Keep this in mind when you’re at the point of naming your product, feature or even company: The name should either be incredibly clear in describing what you are or inspire curiosity in your target audience to ask.

The fallout of a bad name could be as minimal as some initial confusion on the part of your target audience, or as impactful as having them walk way thinking your product is one thing when it’s much, much more.

So, do you know the story behind your company or product name? Is it interesting? Compelling? We’d love to hear it. Please share with us in the comments! Who knows? If your company or product has a great story, we may be compelled to write about it here on SME.

The comments, as always, are yours.