Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Top Ten Things Not To Do When Naming Your Business

As P*S* regulars will know, I often criticize the names of businesses and products just as much as the designs they employ. So I thought I’d offer up a list of the top ten naming pitfalls businesses should avoid.


10. Punny Business
I realize this is coming from a guy who named his blog Pr*tty Sh*tty, but that’s why this sits at number ten. Sometimes it’s ok to use a pun, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the reputation or image a business might be trying to build. Salons seem to like puns a lot, who knows why. But Funeral homes are perhaps not well served by this device, even if it’s a family name.


9. Placing the Name
There are countless small businesses that name themselves after the street they’re on, or the neighborhood they’re in. It’s not such a bad idea, except when you move across town. One of my favorite architecture firms is called Leroy Street Studio... they’re on Hester Street, of course.


8. Name Diarrhea
Speaking of architecture firms, even great ones (like the example above) can go a bit overboard with the list of names. Law firms are most guilty of this, I suspect. I get it. You want, or need, to recognize all the partners. But let’s face it, in everyday usage, no one is getting past the first or second name when mentioning your business. So the third, fourth and fifth guys/gals might as well not be there anyway.


7. Thy Neighbor’s Name
It’s a pretty cheap and lazy tactic to steal or imitate the name of another business in order to get some collateral recognition. The countless Ray’s Pizzas in NYC are a great example of how bad this can get. But the other example shown above is one of my favorites: a restaurant one block from the NY Times Building, that even had the gall to use the Times logotype on their canopy, which as you can see they were made to patch over.


6. Dead On Arrival
Let me be clear about this: Heaven is a place you go when you’re F*CKING DEAD! Ergo, you sell dead sh*t. And no, I’m not buying the argument that Burger Heaven is where burger lovers go when they pass on. You’re telling me regular heaven doesn’t have good burgers? Puhlease!


5. Kool Namez
It’s not possible to trademark or register a word from common daily usage, so businesses often change up a word by spelling it with a Z or a K or whatever. It makes sense, but it smacks of trying to be clever, and I still mostly hate it.


4. Xtracted E
Similar to number 5, but in a category of obnoxiousness all its own, is the use of an X in place of an Ex. This became especially prevalent during the rise of extreme sports, and is still a pretty surefire signal that whatever it is, it’s closer to Xcrement than Xtreme.


3. N ‘n’ R Us
Continuing in that vein, businesses often replace an And with an N. It’s not cute. It’s just tired. But even more tired is the poor dead horse that is R Us. The toy store guys own that, so let it go already.


2. Stuff & Things
That Linens-n-Things image for number 3 hits on another of my naming pet peeves. Either decide what you’re selling, or go do something else. Don’t cover your what-might-I-sell-in-the-future ass by tacking on a lazy, catch-all modifier. Did you know Linens-n-Things also sold solid gold anal beads? Right next to the shower curtain rings and novelty plungers. Kinky!


1. Is That a Name in Your Pocket?
Man alive, can I segue or what! Seriously, do I even need to say anything else?

By the way, Lucky Wang is a kids’ clothing store... you can’t make this stuff up.

28 comments:

  1. Some of the best hair salon experiences I've ever had was at a place called "Julius Scissor" in Philadelphia.

    And that whole X thing started when Standard Oil ("Esso") changed it's name a third time, to Exxon. I think that was in the 70's or maybe the early 80's.

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  2. You hit all my pet peeves almost in order, though for me the 'Z' and 'Xtreme' are tied for first.

    Cheers!

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  3. Pun business names are tacky, sure, but some of them are genius — like the hair salon Curl Up N' Dye, or the Thai restaurant Thai-Nee-Tim, or Back to the Futon. C'mon, lighten up!

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  4. Elizabeth, there's no question puns have their place. That's why I put it at number 10, instead of higher on the list. But if you didn't click the link over to that funeral home, you should. That illustrates my point about it not always being a good thing.

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  5. My mum and I still joke about the time we saw a restaurant called Chicken N Things. We're like "I'll have some chicken, but uh, *wrinkling nose* hold the "things" thanks."

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  6. There is a hair salon near me called Hair Force One. Does it make me laugh? Yes. Would I ever go there? No way in hell.

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  7. Ha! My pal worked at Leroy Street until a few weeks ago. He was never able to suitably explain the name. They're part of the Hester Street Collective. I have to wonder what'll happen when the Collective vacates the Hester street building.

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  8. There's a restaurant in my town called 'Tongue Thai'd'. It always makes me chuckle a little.

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  9. No. 5 always leaves me wondering if they hired the same marketing company as the Klan.
    Whom I am reliably informed are renaming themselves the Xtreme Klanz this year.

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  10. My dads architectural firm, SAGA started as Stafford And Glynn Architecture, then Stafford left so it became Studio of Architecture on Grand Ave.
    But they moved, so now it's just... I dunno Structures And Girders Architecture? Splendid And Glimmering Architecture? Sturdy And Good Architecture?
    Now you think of some!

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  11. Well articulated rant:) I also have a huge pet peeve against companies insisting on spelling their biz or products in a grammatically incorrect way.

    The peeve stems from how it used to bite me in the a$$ as a youngster. I used to get marked for spelling mistakes such as: light and similarly bright; as lite and brite (stemming from lite-brite and rainbow brite). Grr.

    Today, when I have a client that wants to go a similar cutesy route, I'll do my darnedest to persuade otherwise. Sadly, the ones w/the $$ still win those arguments often.

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  12. You forgot the smashing of children's names, like your kids names are Sophie and Sam, your business is call Sophiesamco.

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  13. Oh! That reminds me of a local business that did the kid name mashup to get their business name, Gavina. Naturally that makes you think "vagina", and then you see their logo: http://www.gavina-graphics.com/

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  14. Great post! love your examples of the types of businesses that use each type of name you described. Great read.

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  15. Best (worst) name I've ever seen is "Winegasm" in Astoria, Queens.

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  16. Great post. I SO concur. The best punny business name I've ever seen is a rug store in Salt Lake City called Shag-Rug-La. I'm not kidding.

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  17. Kilgore: Holy Sh*t! I'm dying! I just looked at the Gavina logo! Wowza!

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  18. You're right, salons like puns the most! I saw a salon that was on the second floor of a building called "Upstares Salon."

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  19. How about failure to properly translate the name?
    (e.g. "Dollar World & Many More")

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  20. Brian - A worthwhile comment, but I didn't see the value in picking on names that are lost in translation (although Lucky Wang probably falls into that category). I feel like blogs such as Engrish Funny have done plenty to make light of that category already.

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  21. A clever one here in Phx is Paddy O'furniture. High end outdoor furnishings!

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  22. Question for you.....Will it hurt a business to use a mascot (i.e. tiger) in your name if one of your state's 2 college rivalry teams' mascot is a tiger? AL vs Auburn. Busniess has no sports connection, but the state has a strong rivalry.

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  23. LeaKaye- That is easily the most bizarre question I've been asked as a designer. And you ask it as if anything I have to say has any scientific accuracy. And while I appreciate that vote of confidence, this is all based on my opinions.

    That said, the phenomenon of college sports and the fanaticism surrounding them kind of weirds me out, so I really have no opinion on the matter. You'll have to use you're own best judgment if that sort of thing matters to you and/or your clients, I guess.

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  24. I can't stand the Z and K thing in names - so tacky. Can't help giggling at funny names though... even if they are so wrong.

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  25. You forgot the absolute #1 most obnoxious business-naming strategy: naming a business using the initials of the first names of the owners - as in "CKL Plumbing" for Cory, Kurt, and Lorenzo, or "AD&R Convenience". i'll take a good pun any day. The lack of creativity demonstrated by initial-namers drives me NUTS.

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  26. You forgot to say: don't name your amateur photography business Lisa Marie Photograpie, or rather [first name] [middle name] Photo.

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  27. Actually Rachel, I'm pretty sure I didn't forget to say that. But I appreciate the two cents, nonetheless.

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