Naming A Business/Company

One thing you should definitely know is that the simplicity of your name can influence your success in name-branding enormously.
Now, I can't recall the exact study but a couple researchers studied the stock market results of IPO's that went public.
They found that for starting IPO's the simplicity of their name and ticker name was directly correlated to their success.
I'll try to find the exact study but the point was that the stocks with easy to pronounce names and ticker names where the most successful on the stock market.

So my take away has been that you should not try to be trying to be witty with switching letters for other letters with the same sound. Like X's for 'ex' if that makes any sense?
Oh wait, this name for example: teuxdeux.com > Can you guess what this is? It is a great To-do list app. Really great piece of software but what a horrible name!
Even when I am trying to remember the name I completely misspell it several times.
Easy to pronounce names are golden.

Hope all this made any sense, it is around midnight here and I am dead tired :p

Regards,
Mark

[Edit]
I found a summery of the research: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0530083959.htm

I have a formula and it's called brainstorming with a pen and paper. Then I check to make sure if name is taken, if so, I either move to the next name, or, keep revising my names.

The name of my business has nothing to do with the names of my domains. Except for my home domain, which is also my business name, my domains are typically based on keywords.

My business name, Latchkey Productions, popped into my head almost immediately after deciding to go it on my own way back in 1996. 'Latchkey' because it was a way of opening doors for both myself, my family, and my potential customers, and 'Productions' because of the things I was going to produce. Pretty simple, really.

Try some of the company name generators online. I used a web 2.0 one to create a unique name for my company.

How many household name brands can you name that directly relate to the product being sold. I learned long ago that trademarking a name that could easily become a household word is a bad idea. Who ever thought Kodak or Kleenex or Zerox or for that matter Coke would lose their trademark due to them becoming household words. But none of them related to their product when the company first came out with it. What did Apple or Microsoft have to do with their products? Your company name should be unique enough that you can defend it in court if necessary, not something in common use a keyword.

If I were trying to name a web based business, I would load up scrapebox, and do a normal keyword search and a wonder-wheel keyword search for my main keyword.

Once I had that list of keywords (maybe a few thousand) I would click the button and see which exact match domains were available.

I wish I would have done that years ago.

If I weren't selling or doing business online, I would just try to figure out something that would resonate well with customers. But. . . my money is on an exact keyword match domain for actually generating business.

I spent a long time to come up with my company name, it had to mean nothing and enable me to trade and deal in anything.

The word is not a word but catch none the less

Its mine and my girlfriends initials with a little twist

My company is Davlic Media

A play on words or a mistaken word like google (instead of goggles) is the best practice. If you can pull that off, that will be the best bet in my opinion.

well going off my past business expereince

choosing a name for a busniess even products is what i call a fun thing... but its a good play on words, and yes it can explode yuur customer base but it can also become a valued brand name.

Brainstorming words, letters, names and relating to your business or industry your business is in... but it can be fun.... and enjoyable but can take a bit of time but once you have the business name.... can become powerful...

I take a note pad and a pen/pencil and write down names and ideas that are related to the business I have in mind. I combine these words in different formats. I think about how these words will look within a logo. It may come across as simplified, but working on ideas in this "old fashioned" manner usually results in successful outcome for me.

Along these same lines, I keep in mind various spelling formats for different parts of the world. For example, here in Canada we have words like centre, colour, licence, offence, and travelling, while in the USA these words are spelled center, color, license, offense, and traveling. With this in mind, I try to keep in mind not only variations in spelling, but also how people will look for something within a general internet search.

Great post. I've read about making sure you have your keywords in your name, but I am finding it hard to do so for the new business I am working on.

As for my current business Straylight Media, well...its from one of my favorite novels, Nueromancer by William Gibson. The chapter entitled The Straylight Run was when all the preparation, hustle, manipulation and drive came together to make something happen. Mistakes were made, all hope seemed lost, there was surprises and victory and in the end, the world as we know it was changed. This is my Straylight Run and that's why I named it that.

I need a name like that, a name that I believe in and I'm proud to be attached to.