One of the fun parts of setting up a new company is naming it. In a world full of Yahoo!s, Googles and YouTubes, the relevance and, indeed, the reverence of a name counts for little, but the name is the first step in brand building.
There are a few criteria to follow when selecting a name:
And more recently, the ability to mangle a proper noun into all kinds of grammatical forms is a consideration (“Google it”, “a Yahoo!”, etc..), and although this goes against prevailing trademark advice and many companies sue for the perceived misuse of their corporate name (“to hoover”).
Trademarking a name takes a long time, so the best way to protect it in the meantime is to register a company in its name.
For Project V I’ve decided to turn to the long list of names I already have registered and I’ve also decided not to register all the suffixes, just use the .com, .net and .co.uk I already own. And that name is V..... now, that would be telling...
There are a few criteria to follow when selecting a name:
- Is the company name available ?
- Is the URL available ?
- Does it mean something bad in another language ?
And more recently, the ability to mangle a proper noun into all kinds of grammatical forms is a consideration (“Google it”, “a Yahoo!”, etc..), and although this goes against prevailing trademark advice and many companies sue for the perceived misuse of their corporate name (“to hoover”).
Trademarking a name takes a long time, so the best way to protect it in the meantime is to register a company in its name.
For Project V I’ve decided to turn to the long list of names I already have registered and I’ve also decided not to register all the suffixes, just use the .com, .net and .co.uk I already own. And that name is V..... now, that would be telling...
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