Why names matter

You lose a trademark dispute and are forced to or you enter a country where your current name is not available. Haloid to Xerox. Your name becomes associated to something toxic which has nothing to do with you e. Your name becomes associated to something toxic of your own making e. Finally, for less immediate reasons, you decide your name is too long e.

Customers build brands, not companies. They give brands value by developing perceptions and expectations for those brands. Your brand name is short cut to these associations. A brand name should be easily remembered, catchy, explain what your product does as well as communicate the message you want to send.

What does your name say about you? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. There are chiefly five types of brand names with varying degrees of difficulty in trademarking. Functional names that state the function and purpose of a product such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

Descriptive names that say something about the purpose but, use imagery to forge a functional link such as Twitter or Whirlpool. Connotative names that suggest an aspect of what the product does typically a benefit such as Red Bull or Amazon. Names of the founders with the focus on the personalities who created the company, used commonly by consultants, solicitors and communication agencies.

What makes a good brand name? What should you consider when naming your brand? Does it capture what your brand stands for in a positive way? Is it appropriate, appealing and relevant to your target audience?

Does it link, imply or identify in some way to what you actually do? Is it flexible, can it last if you expand over time, or will it age quickly? Does it sound like anyone else?

Does it differentiate you from your peers? Is it memorable? Have you anchored it on an emotional memory or a physical sensation? Does it fit your overall company portfolio? The men with unusual names, the study found, were more likely to have flunked out or to have exhibited symptoms of psychological neurosis than those with more common names. The Mikes were doing just fine, but the Berriens were having trouble. A rare name, the professors surmised, had a negative psychological effect on its bearer.

Since then, researchers have continued to study the effects of names, and, in the decades after the study, these findings have been widely reproduced. Our names can even determine whether we give money to disaster victims: if we share an initial with the name of a hurricane, according to one study, we are far more likely to donate to relief funds after it hits.

Because we value and identify with our own names, and initials, the logic goes, we prefer things that have something in common with them. That view, however, may not withstand closer scrutiny.

The psychologist Uri Simonsohn, from the University of Pennsylvania, has questioned many of the studies that purport to demonstrate the implicit-egotism effect, arguing that the findings are statistical flukes that arise from poor methodology. It may be appealing to think that someone named Dan would prefer to be a doctor, but we have to ask whether there are so many doctor Dans simply because Dan is a common name, well-represented in many professions.

Introductions are about making a human connection between one human being who is suffering and vulnerable, and another human being who wishes to help.

In order to introduce oneself authentically and form a true human connection with another, we must use the name with which we identify, to which we feel connected, and that which we feel most authentically conveys to others who we are. No one should feel the need to change their given name unless they themselves feel another name is truer to their nature and no one has the right to ask this of a person—to do so is an utter disrespect of personhood, undermining one's individuality and threatening the authenticity of the nurse-patient therapeutic relationship.

Opinion Why names matter.