Bill Bither's Insights

When I was a kid, growing up in rural upstate New York, I had this fond interest in butterflies. It seems to be an incredible geeky thing to do, even then. But I would spend my summer's chasing, collecting, and identifying these insects even participating in a scientific study documenting location and identifying species of all butterflies I came in contact with. Could life really have been that simple once? I was 9 years old and it was 1984. That year, my family took a 2 week vacation to the Everglades in Florida, and I found one of the rarest butterfly's in North America, the Atala.

Sixteen years later in April 2000 when I had a small shareware product to launch, called EyeBatch, I had to come up with a company name. At that point I knew nothing about running a business, let alone branding and naming a company.  I happened to have my old butterfly book on a bookshelf, and as I was flipping through I came across the Atala. Remembering that day years back, I looked for the domain atala.com (it was taken) and decided on atalasoft.  Little did I know that it would evolve into the successful company that it is today.  If only I had known how often it would be confused with atlasoft or utalasoft.  That's OK though, we are all very fond of the name, and have a great mascot and logo despite breaking so many of the accepted company naming rules!

We now use a local marketing firm, BidwellID, to help with our branding efforts.  John Bidwell, the president and founder, has a white paper on this subject and is one of the best sources I have found on naming a company.  John suggests that a good company name will:

• distinguish you from your competition
• create an immediate, positive image of your organization
• help you be remembered
• inspire images that later will take form in your organization’s logo, marketing campaigns, and other communications efforts
• can help you dominate your organizational category (such as education, tableware, or wireless networking)

Additionally, the following points should be considered:

• should be easy to spell.
• should make a good nickname.
• Aim for repetition of letters and sounds (For example, Apple and Dell both repeat a letter.)
• The name should suggest the category into which your organization fits. (For example, it’s easy to guess what Rounder Records sells.) At the very least, your name should not suggest a category different from the organization’s.
• The name should be easy to pronounce. Beware of foreign words and of English words that are too esoteric.

John mentions that a name should suggest a category.  While this can be considered, I don’t think it's necessary for a company that is looking at establishing a brand for themselves.  Look at names like Apple, Adobe, and Yahoo.  They do not suggest a category, but even my grandmother knows who you're talking about when hearing them.  Or you can pick a name that breaks almost all these rules and takes an entire blog entry to explain.  It worked for us!  Even if you are picking a company name for some silly product idea that you really have no plans on going anywhere, you never know where it could lead in a few years.