Corporate Naming: A Strategic Guide

Corporate Naming: A Strategic Guide

Your company’s name is its most valuable asset. It serves as the foundation of your brand identity, embodying the vision, mission, and values of your company. Your corporate name is the first opportunity to introduce your core idea to customers — it sets the tone for what you will stand for and how you will behave in the marketplace. An effective corporate name can significantly impact market perception, foster customer trust, and drive long term success. Truly effective names are more than just labels, they deliver real value and help drive revenue.

Key Considerations for Corporate Naming

Brand Identity and Positioning

Your corporate name should reflect your brand’s core values and strategic positioning. It communicates the essence of what your company stands for and aspires to be. For instance, Sonos, derived from the Latin word “sonus” meaning sound, encapsulates the company’s focus on delivering high-quality audio experiences. Similarly, Lucid Motors, with its connotations of clarity and visionary thinking, aligns with the brand’s mission to revolutionize the electric vehicle market. These examples illustrate how a thoughtfully chosen brand name can enhance brand identity and create a lasting impression.

Creativity and Clarity

Balancing creativity with clarity is crucial in corporate naming. While unique and inventive names can capture attention and differentiate a brand, they must also be easily understood and memorable. Names that are overly complex or ambiguous can lead to confusion and dilute brand messaging. It’s important that you avoid generic names that fail to stand out in the marketplace. Striking the right balance ensures that the name is not only distinctive but also supports the brand’s value proposition effectively.

Trademark and Intellectual Property

One of the essential steps in the name development process is ensuring the legal availability of your chosen name. This involves conducting thorough trademark searches to confirm that the name is not already in use or legally protected by another entity. Failing to do so can result in costly legal disputes and the need to rebrand. Finding brand names that are trademarkable in today’s digital economy is not easy. In the US alone, over 500,000 marks were registered in 2023. This means that any new brand must navigate through millions of existing trademarks. With only 26 letters in the alphabet, creating something ownable is becoming increasingly difficult.    

If you’re renaming your company, it doesn’t mean you need to refile your business registrations. Many companies have both a trade name and legal name. A trade name, also known as a DBA (doing business as) or fictitious name, is the name you use in marketing your company. In most cases, DBA names do need to be registered. Your legal entity name is set out in your Articles of Incorporation or Certificate of Limited Partnership and appears on documents, registrations, and government forms. Your legal business entity name will include the required words indicating your business structure. Your legal business name should include words such as Incorporated, Corporation, Company, or Limited Liability Company. You might also use abbreviations, like Inc., Corp., Co., or Ltd. For example, Walmart’s business name is Walmart, while their legal name is Wal-Mart, Inc. You can change your trade name without changing your legal name. 

Global Resonance 

In today’s digital world, names are instantly global. It’s important for your corporate name to resonate across different cultures and languages. A name that works well in one region might have negative connotations or be difficult to pronounce in another. Your naming agency partner should have a global network of linguists to ensure that your name is culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate worldwide. This will help you navigate the challenges of localization and achieve a cohesive global presence.

The Corporate Naming Process

1. Brainstorming and Ideation

The journey to finding your perfect corporate name begins with agreement around the role for the name. In short, what is the job of the name?  Next, through brainstorming and ideation, name candidates are developed and evaluated. Contextual examples are helpful, like putting a name in a press release or Wall Street Journal article to see if the name sounds believable. It often takes several rounds before a shortlist is created. 

2. Remember Your Digital Presence

Today’s digital world is multidimensional. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) have greatly accelerated the number of places that a name needs to work. A company name must work as a website domain name, in social media and in multiple languages. Fortunately, a business name no longer needs to have a .com URL to be credible. For example, the exercise product company Peloton’s URL is onepeloton.com.

3. Preliminary Screening

The naming shortlist should go through a preliminary legal screening to eliminate any names that have too much risk. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a name that is already trademarked in your business category.  A preliminary trademark screening will give a quick assessment of the viability of a business name or product name. Name availability can be challenging. There are over 3.2 million active trademarks in the U.S. Trademark Register. In 2023 the United States Patent and Trademark office received over 737K trademark filing and by Q2 2024 it had already received 367K for the year. 

4. Testing and Validation

Once a shortlist of potential names is generated and has gone through preliminary screening, they can be tested. This involves gathering feedback from stakeholders, conducting market research, and evaluating the names against your predefined criteria. Never ask someone if they like a name without giving context of what the name is trying to convey. 

Linguistic and cultural assessments are also important. They indicate how your new name will perform across your key markets or around the globe. Before launching a new brand, you should understand the strengths and weaknesses of the name. 

5. Final Trademark Review

Once your team has developed a shortlist of preferred candidates it’s time to pass that along to your trademark counsel. Corporate names, especially for global brands, must be rigorously screened before going to market. Your counsel will do a deeper availability review process with the Secretary of State’s office and give you a risk assessment for each name on your shortlist. If you’re not yet quite ready to incorporate your new business, you can consider doing a name reservation. This lets you reserve your preferred name, usually for a period of 60-120 days. There are over a million trademarks, just for tech companies and their products alone. That’s almost double the number of words in the entire English language. Never fall in love with a name until it passes clearance screening. 

Case Studies and Examples

Vercel

The rebranding of the San Francisco-based startup Zeit to Vercel highlights the power of a business name in communicating core benefits and driving market success. The company announced their renaming along with their Series A funding announcement in 2020. To date, Vercel has secured $563 in funding since their rebrand.

Light & Wonder

The transition from Scientific Games to Light & Wonder shows how a fresh, playful name can invigorate a brand while maintaining trust and reliability. The company announced their rebrand to Light & Wonder on March 2, 2022. On the same day, the stock price jumped to $68.84, the highest it had been all year.

Impossible Foods

Formerly Maraxi, the transition to Impossible Foods shows how the innovative nature of this plant-based products company drove consumer interest and market success. The name Impossible Foods alludes to the almost magical qualities of an environmentally friendly plant-based product that holds its own against meat. 

These case studies, along with others such as Sonos and Lucid Motors show the impact and value corporate naming has on business success and market positioning.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is meant by corporate name?

A corporate name refers to the official legal name of a corporation. It’s the name that the corporation adopts at its formation, complying with state-specific requirements. The name must include an authorized “suffix” indicating the company’s entity type and limited liability status, such as “Corporation,” “Incorporated,” “L.L.P.”, or “LLC”.

How do you create a corporate name?

When creating the perfect name, consider strategic messaging as you brainstorm, keep in mind all the many digital places your name will need to work, perform name search to check availability, test and validate the name, and then conduct a thorough trademarking process.

What are the corporate naming conventions?

Corporate naming conventions involve using common names found in reliable sources, adding legal status (like “Inc.” or “LLC”) if needed, and categorizing names into mainstream words, made-up words, business owner’s names, obvious descriptions, trendy words, or initials/abbreviations.