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It’s increasingly common for entrepreneurs to complain that "all the good domain names are taken." In desperation, some concoct strange-looking company names that customers need to be taught how to pronounce. According to business naming expert Marcia Yudkin, however, head of the naming company Named At Last (www.namedatlast.com), an unsayable name damages a company’s potential for word-of-mouth publicity. Furthermore, just a little more creative effort can lead namers to original name options that can be easily pronounced.
"Take it from someone who often has to rescue someone from mispronunciation when they read my last name out loud for the first time," says Marcia Yudkin. "Don’t saddle your new business baby with the handicap of being unsayable."
Yudkin ticks off four specific reasons for her recommendation:
1. With a name that's hard to pronounce, fewer people will say it. Most people hate making mistakes, dislike being corrected and feel embarrassed to be tripping over pronouncing a company name. So, many will simply avoid saying it. That means fewer people will recommend the company to others in conversation.
2. A name that's hard to pronounce is also often harder to remember. That means less impact from dollars spent on marketing. It will cost more to get the same results than with a name that's easy to pronounce.
3. You need to spend considerable time and energy on the issue of pronunciation rather than on what the company does. Very often you also need to explain the derivation or meaning of the name, not just how to say it. For instance, Cuil, a search engine, explains on its About page that the name is an old Irish word for knowledge. Its press releases need to include the information that the name is pronounced "cool."
4. People won’t know how to spell an unpronounceable name. On the web, that can be calamitous. If someone hears people talking about a search engine called "cool," they are going to look it up at Cool.com or maybe at Kool.com. Not one in a million would look for it at Cuil.com unless someone clued them in.
"Most of all, I want people to understand that with a little sideways effort, anyone can come up with creative name options that are pronounceable and correspond to available domains," says Yudkin.
Yudkin provides a free set of steps for coming up with names that fit a new company’s purpose and audience and correspond to available domains. Download her tips at no cost at www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm.
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