Your Business Name - Is it Old-Fashioned?

The top ten baby girls' names in the UK in 2007 were Grace, Ruby, Olivia, Emily, Jessica, Sophie, Chloe, Lily, Ella and Amelia. For boys, the top ten were Jack, Thomas, Oliver, Joshua, Harry, Charlie, Daniel, William, James and Alfie. That is a completely different picture from the 1950s, when Susan and David were the most popular names, closely followed by Margaret, Janet, Barbara, Judith, Robert, Brian, Philip and Stephen.

What has that got to do with naming your business? Well, if you call your boutique Margaret Fashions, or your hair salon Barbara's, then you are not going to attract today's teenage girls and young women through your door. They will regard your name -- and thus your business -- as old-fashioned. If your target market is the 18-24 age group, then lots of them will be called Lauren, Jessica, Sarah, Samantha, Matthew, James, Christopher or Alexander. Calling your fashion, jewellery or hairdressing business by a name that was popular in the 1980s will resonate with this group; you will sound like one of their friends, someone who understands them.

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Fashions change in words and language, just as they do in clothes and personal names. Words and expressions go out of fashion because society has changed and the name is no longer seen as relevant. The UK relationship organization Relate was previously called The Marriage Guidance Council, but couples who weren't married thought the services of the charity weren't available to them, hence the change of name. The Spastics Society, which helps people with cerebral palsy, became Scope because spastic had become a derogatory word. Charities these days like to stress what disabled people can do, rather than their limitations. Managers of the Leonard Cheshire charity said that the name was a barrier to the achievement of the organization's goals, since four out of five people under the age of 35 have no idea who Leonard Cheshire (a British WW2 hero) was. They suggested the alternative names of Equability UK and eQual UK but so far, pressure from Lord Cheshire's family has kept the status quo.

Young people speak a completely different language, and if you want them as your customers, you too have to be fluent in this lingo. Their friends are their crew, the opposite sex is buff or fit and things aren't fab or excellent, they're mint, cool, bad or wicked!

Your Business Name - Is it Old-Fashioned?