What’s in a Name?

Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

We all know names are hugely important, especially in business branding. Would Kumquat have been as successful as the iconic Apple brand, business names that are difficult to pronounce or spell may get recognition from those difficulties but would they be as successful as those brands that roll off the tongue easily and conjure up the brand as soon as the words are heard.

Thinking of a name for a new business idea is always challenging. So many ideas spring up when you are for example, driving to the grocery story and are of course immediately forgotten once you return home and sit down with a pad and paper. I live on a beautiful island in the Caribbean, Grenada. Should I use something iconic to Grenada like nutmeg, cinnamon, tamarind, other more usual spices? I come from Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, should I use Yorkshire dialect, like tyke, ‘owt ah nowt, or another idiom or quirk of that rich, salt of the earth culture from the largest county in the UK.

What about a search on the internet? There are many business name generators where you plug in keywords that describe the business and out comes a very long list of names; some irrelevant some already taken, some premium that required much money to purchase. This was my salvation with the name for this idea which has promise to turn into an interesting business and hopefully profitable in the future but lets stick with interesting for the time being.

Connected Pens was hidden in a long list, below the fold (for those of you who know what that means). I idly scrolled the list, nothing leaped out, then Connected Pens appeared. I scrolled past unaware that those two words had ignited something in my subconscious. Boredom set in or something more pressing required my attention so I left the long list alone. A few days later it cropped up in my search history and at the top of the list was Connected Pens. I scrolled past again, but something drew me back to those two words so I explored.

This was such an interesting concept — the name for my idea of a business combining writing websites and creative writing — connected spoke to the website and pens spoke to the writing. Connected Pens was born.