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3 Tips on Choosing the Perfect Name for Your Business – By Ifemidayo Odekunle [@IFM4Real]

Growing a business is very similar to growing a child. Before raising your ‘child’, you need to name it first, so people know how to address it. Naming is also important to distinguish your business with another. But, you need to be careful when naming your business. The brand name should represent what kind of business you’re running. Otherwise, it could confuse your customers.

Carelessness in choosing a name for your brand not only could confuse. There are countless businesses in the world with different names, and they might have patented the name. If your company uses trademarked business name, the company which name you are using could sue you, and you don’t want that to happen to your business.

And here are the 3 tips on choosing the perfect name for your business:

  1. Choose simple and easy-to-pronounce names.

The main reason behind this one is to help people remember your brand name. It is easier for people to memorize brand names with only 2-3 syllables such as Nike or Toyota rather than brand names with more than 3 syllables like Hewlett-Packard. It’s hard for people to remember ‘Hewlett-Packard’, so they changed it into HP.

  1. Choose suggestive names

Suggestive and meaningful names can also help the brand gain brand awareness. For example, the world’s biggest Pizza restaurant chain is Pizza Hut. The word ‘Pizza’ is suggestive, while ‘Hut’ suggests people that the restaurant is not expensive, thus the name Pizza Hut. Another perfect example for this is Burger King. The suggestiveness on this one is strong, because the company wants to tell people that they sell burgers and their burgers are great. Another example in Nigeria is “Cregital” a digital company, “Jobberman” a job search company, “Ecclezzia” a Christian company.

  1. Choose unique names.

Names like Google, Skype, Andela, RED, are unique. They might be meaningless, but brands who choose unique names know that they will have to popularize the names first. They create products that people love, and the names got popular through channels like social media, TV, or even word-of-mouth.

Keep it in mind that when choosing a name, you need to be careful not to offend anyone or violate any laws. You obviously don’t want to have your brand to be labeled as a ‘bad brand’ just because you name it wrong. Examples are Evans & Sons Company; before you join the bandwagon of most ‘Igbo Men start-ups’ ask yourself these questions; Is it memorable? Is it unique? Is it easy to pronounce?

 

Ifemidayo Odekunle is an IBX Orange Academy graduate. He calls himself the Brand Engineer because he designs and creates brand processes and ideas for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. He writes and shares thoughts on Branding generally. Follow him on Twitter @IFM4real

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Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng

Copyright 2017 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Grant

    August 20, 2017 at 5:29 pm

    This is great. Really strong post. If you’re interested in learning more about the business naming process, the information in this article has helped a lot of people develop company names they love:
    http://blog.squadhelp.com/a-proven-approach-to-naming-your-business-brand-startup/

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