Something funny happened to me yesterday, and it brought me to ask how companies come up with names, and what makes them think its a good idea.
It only struck me when I was entering a building yesterday and on telling the concierge our company name he retorted with "another random name" it was probably a bit rude on his part, but I guess he hears that many different company names on a daily basis that Peapod was one of the new band of different names from the ones of years gone by when everyone sounded like a firm of Accountants. So how do companies come up with names, some happen as subconsciously as ours did (see the blog what's in a name), but some take weeks and months to come up with, with the end result being a scientific concoction that nods towards the industry they are in. Then there are those who spend thousands and sometimes millions of pounds on employing consultants to come up with something catchy and memorable, only to find that they could have been more creative themselves.
Ironically as I left my meeting I walked down the street and stumbled across a company called Pod who are a coffee chain in London, I had never seen or heard of them before, but they had similar fonts to us, a similar colour scheme on their website and I guess a similar ethic (albeit in a different industry). I had never seen or clapped eyes upon Pod when we created Peapod, but in some ways it could look like we had.
The point I am getting to in a long and meandering kind of way is that although some people may think the name strange or different as the concierge did, embrace it as there's always the same amount who like it and think its innovative, overall its your identity and no-one else's and you should be proud of it. Also don't think too hard as sometimes the answer is there and waiting to be discovered.
