Help with Company Name

Phil Buchanan

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Join Date
Jun 2015
Location
Atlanta, Georgia
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640
We are working on starting a new venture and I am asking for some help with company name ideas that would be somewhat unique and not run into any major copyright issues with other businesses.

We were thinking to have an umbrella company with the primary name and then similar naming scheme for the sub companies arms.

One arm of the company will be turn-key design, Consulting and integration.

Another arm of the company will be corporate and Industrial IT focused with a high focus on industrial networking which is our current specialty.

The third and final arm of the company will be focusing on automation training for our customer base. We were considering somehow using a domain we already own for this one which is Automation Education.com but we are glad to go with a better idea that fits with the other business arms.

The new business will be based in the Atlanta, Georgia area and we plan to serve nationwide. This will be a formation of several very successful 1-3 man companies and everyone is bringing a unique skill set.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.
 
In my opinion, short names are best. How about some combination of the owner/founder names. For example if Bob and Charlie start the company, how about "BC Controls".
 
I think that since you are looking for the parent company, the name should be something ominous or wide ranging. You could use just two or three names (I know a couple of companies that are precisely like this) and this tends to be what lawyers do.

I quite like the word Industries in the name of a company though. It doesn't go well with all names, but with some it works a treat.

For example, Reynholm Industries (Don't use that one though as it's bound to be registered already).
The name itself can be anything... a person, a place, mountain, object.

Also, I don't think that the services provided are that far spread out to require separate naming to "arms" of the company as that can in a way dilute the brand whilst the company is small.

In today's marketplace, all three arms are directly related to the Automation business... sure, the IT side can do some regular IT stuff such as setting up email and web domains, etc... but I'm sure there is plenty of work with automation stuff alone for people in the IT industry with all the virtualisation and networking developments that we see.

One name that I haven't seen that could be useful, although impersonal is Integrated Automation Services.
 
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"Think BIG"

Featuring

"Think Integration"

"Think Consultation"

Think about "IT"

It's kinda subliminal, and kinda fun
 
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Automation Education is terrible, because it is not a unique brand vs the product search.

For example if I want to find a logo PLC, a google search will give me lots of company logos for propriatry limited companies. Automation Education will get me lots of local training centres with automation in the keywords.

You need a name that is easy to remember, and if you google it you are going to get the number one result.

You have listed what you plan to do in the next 5 years. Make sure you leave it open for what you may do in 20 years time. Don't use the word automation, and then "oh, by the way we build buildings as well."

Also, you have listed functions, but not anything about the culture. How do you want people to feel about the company when they say your company name?
 
many, many years ago - while working at a technical college - we were trying to come up with names for various new classes and programs ... I wrote a little BASIC program that we could enter ANY "word" that we thought might make sense (Automation, Industrial, etc.) ...

the BASIC program would then shuffle all of the "candidate" words around into every conceivable two-or-three-word combination – and then spit them out to a printer ... it also listed the INITIALS of each combination too – right alongside the names ...

naturally some (most?) of the combinations were "junk" and were quickly discarded ... sometimes the names sounded great – but the initials just would NOT be useable ...

but if we added enough names – something cool would eventually come out ...

anyway – I'm just saying that I know what you're up against ... been there – done that ...

some extra (unsolicited) advice – and I'm pretty sure that you've already considered this ...

when setting up an endeavor like you're working on, you need to involve a lawyer – and an accountant – in the very earliest planning stages ...

even if you and your buddies COMPLETELY trust each other – you should NOT set this up based on a handshake ... consider that what you're "setting up" will someday have to "come down" ...

if one of the parties of the first part dies, is disabled, etc. - then you'll quickly find out that each of the "buddies" has dependents and beneficiaries – and so on ... some of those parties will want a say-so in how this type of situation gets handled ... (first think: "ugly" – now double that thought) ...

best of luck with your plans ...
 
Check the USPTO to see if the name is trademarked. Also check for the URL availability.
Funny story about that.
I once worked for a company called Gilson Electric Supply Company, and they abbreviated it as GESCo, then filed it as a trade mark in 1906. Decades later, GE got into the electrical distribution business by opening their own captive chain called GE Supply Co. and ALSO abbreviated it GESCo, then immediately went nationwide with it, not having checked first. Mr. Gilson cashed in a pretty penny at the time to sell that trademark to GE, knowing that their only alternative would have been to try to roll back the use of "GESCo" from the market. In addition to a cash settlement, he also got exclusive rights to being a GE distributor in Northern California for 20 years. So during that entire time, there was no GESco office there until after that contract expired.

(For you youngsters, GESCo later became Gexpro, now no longer owned by GE when they became part of Rexel).
 
In my opinion, short names are best. How about some combination of the owner/founder names. For example if Bob and Charlie start the company, how about "BC Controls".

As it stands we could not fairly represent everyone with this method and people could change in the future so we are trying to avoid using anyone's personal name if possible but I do agree shorter maybe better.
 

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