I admit that I wasn’t really liking ooGooRoo — it was pretty much a placeholder from the start, that I thought I could keep there for the foreseeable future. Try again, Mr. Smartypants.

I’ve quickly learned that for me, it was imperative to pick ‘the name’ early on because you:
a) want to create a logo, color palate, and landing page (to solicit interest, recruit from, etc.)
b) need to file for trademark protection for the name, logo, taglines, and such
c) can excite people about your business by evaluating the verbal description and business plan against the ‘Surname’
d) find whatever name you use becoming more permanent every day, despite your best efforts!

So, on Wednesday night, we pulled together the ‘company staffers’ and a few other creative folks who haven’t been in daily discussions — I wanted to gauge some excitement for our overall idea, and also try to go in different directions and avoid concepts that had begun to set in stone.

To prepare for the meeting, I sent out some pre-reading of favorite Naming Resources — I’ve presented them below to save my competitors some time 😉

If you’re interested in learning more about Company Naming, check these out:

The first three come from the Name Inspector blog, run by a Seattle-based blogger with a PhD in Linguistics):

1. 10 Tips for Naming Your Company, Product or Service
2. 10 Company Name Types
3. Visual Thesaurus
4. Seth Godin’s naming rules
5. Guy Kawasaki’s naming rules

The name must pass some simple ‘viral/passalong’ litmus tests:
a) “Is this a name you’d want to tell your friend when you’re out having drinks and you tell them about your experience with this website?”
b) Would one of your customers feel silly referring other customers to a company with this name?”

p.s. Thanks to Bruce and Vicki (for not only their help with the naming exercise, but also for the most excellent accommodations!), Michelle the GooRoo, Karen, and Katie!