One of the toughest challenges in marketing today is coming up with a compelling name for your company, product, service, website, whatever. As pretty much everyone knows, creating an effective name — for which you can secure a decent URL and clear trademark rights — is incredibly difficult in a world where thousands of new websites and start ups are springing up every day. The name pickings are increasingly slim out there.

So what is the intrepid marketer or entrepreneur to do? Should she/he hire a specialty naming firm, many of whom claim to have “proprietary databases” containing hundreds of thousands of available names and/or a special, super secret and of course “proprietary” naming “system/model/software” that spits out names automatically? (I am not making this up…there are plenty of naming and corporate identity firms that offer just such services for $50K and much higher.)

You probably already have some idea of where I stand on these questions. I don’t believe in proprietary databases or computer models for naming. They usually don’t work, oftentimes coming up with horridly concocted names that are devoid of personality and character. And, just because you have a database of names that you dreamed up for other clients, doesn’t mean that you can effectively repurpose them to create a great name for a new client. Like leftovers, names that sit around too long just get tired.

The place to start in figuring out a compelling new name is to do your strategic homework. You’ll want to take the time to figure out what your new company/product/service/site stands for, what problem it is solving or opportunity filling, how you want it to be perceived, and how it is differentiated from everything else out there. In other words, develop your strategic positioning before you ever even start to think about a name. Once you have a solid strategic understanding, the name ideas start to percolate.

I am amazed these days how many names of new companies and/or products are completely nonsensical. But, strangely enough, that frequently turns out to be fine as the ultimate success of the name is what you fill it with and what you do with it (in other words, how you build the brand based on that name). Because, meaning comes from action and tangible deeds, not from just words. As I mention frequently here, a brand is a promise made and a promise kept, consistently over time. Ultimately, what you do and deliver is how you will be perceived, not your name. (Of course, there are some pretty bad names out there that don’t help the process, but a stellar brand reputation can negate the effects of even a terrible name. I probably would not have suggested the name SAP for a technology company, but that name didn’t prevent SAP from becoming one of the leading and largest enterprise software brands on the planet.)

The fact is, there are very few “descriptive” names left any more (just try to secure a URL for a site dealing with legal services or lawyers and you will immediately see what I mean…virtually everything has been already taken). And, most of us don’t have the luxury of using our own “formal” names for a company and/or product (i.e., Ford Motor Company, Sony, Disney, Levi’s, etc.)

Consequently, we’re left with trying to come up with a “fanciful” or “made up” name, and that is where it gets interesting. I have had so many clients come to me and ask if they should change their company or product name, usually because they think it “means nothing” or is “misunderstood” in the marketplace. Well, Apple Computer didn’t mean much either when it launched. To this day, I still don’t really know what eBay means, but I do know it is a huge and successful web brand. It’s what you do with the name that matters in the long run.

One of the greatest contemporary brands in the world is Virgin. That wily entrepreneur Richard Branson has affixed the Virgin name to everything from record megastores to cellular services, railroads and airlines, mostly with success. The Virgin brand now represents something fresh, original and creative in the consumer’s mind, even though the name itself does not really mean anything (especially related to some of the products it is paired with).

My advice to a lot of entrepreneurs is to stick with the name they have, but create a strong narrative around it. You can even fashion an interesting “backstory” for the name that provides much needed personality and ”heritage” for building your brand.

Net-net, coming up with a compelling name is certainly not easy, but it is not as difficult as it seems to be. Figure out your strategic positioning first, and then encourage as much input as you can from as many people as possible, because you never know where a good name is going to come from. Sometimes it emerges from the least expected places and individuals. When you first heard the Google name, what was your first reaction? Probably not swept off your feet, right? But, it was (and still is) an interesting sounding name, relatively short, memorable and just kind of fun. And, then the folks at Google built a compelling and exciting narrative around the Google name which led to the birth of one of the most powerful brands in history.

If you do your homework and get your creative juices flowing just right, even you can come up with the next Google — well, at least the name, if not the company.

Happy naming!

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