Companies aren’t reliant on having a name that’s closely linked to their own purpose , but there’s no harm in taking this into account. Spotify or Skype aren’t self-explanatory, even though the latter name is admittedly derived from “Sky-Peer-to-Peer”. The names don’t tell us who they are or what they represent. Rather, all the things they do and achieve help to add colour to their names over time. The most important thing in the interaction between name and purpose is to ensure that there’s no direct disharmony between the two. If there’s a massive collision between the name of a company and what it represents, this may work if the company is disruptive and love to provoke people, or if the company has a target group that’s able to withstand irony and self-irony.i.

I think the exceptionally organised Swedish company Ordning och reda – "Orderliness" – has a very appropriate name. But just as an experiment, let’s imagine they’d decided to call themselves something like Chaos. I still think most of their customers would have understood the irony and appreciated their designs, because what you encounter when you visit their shops is the direct opposite of chaos. The aim of this is just to indicate that you don’t necessarily need to be overly obvious in order to come up with a name that matches the company’s purpose well.

When Elon Musk takes a company that spends most of its time boring tunnels and calls it The Boring Company, that works well. Musk is never far out of the limelight, so potential customers soon get an idea of what it’s all about. It’s a name that rapidly bores to the heart of the company and actually makes a “boring company” rather less boring. In other words, there are lots of different ways of teaming up the company’s name with its purpose . More about Mr Musk later on in the article.

Banner of the book Point of Purpose written by Bård Annweiler

Why ask why?

At Mission, we firmly believe in purpose. Behind the question WHY DOES YOUR COMPANY EXIST? lies an answer that should be fostered and cultivated. As long as your company isn’t an onion, there’s a core in there that affects something that’s more important than anything else, including money. The advantage of putting this fundamental aspect of your company into words is that it can help you find something that’s more important than anything the company does and everything it earns and – not least – that’s stronger than all the founders and board members that come and go. In other words, a purpose is something that’s written for eternity, even though nothing lasts forever. A good purpose doesn’t have an expiry date, and it’s precisely this long-term perspective that characterises a good company name as well. Although the world is just moving faster and faster and becoming more and more hectic, coming up with a name that’s able to stand the test of time is a sensible ambition. The consequence of what I’m telling you here is that it’s really not a bad idea to have some kind of symbiosis between the company’s NAME and the company’s PURPOSE. The purpose tells us WHY we should care about this company, while the name – and the logo that goes with it – is the business card that must immediately underpin and represent the company and its purpose, either by showing precisely WHO you are and WHAT you do, or by creating the right feeling among the target group. And ideally both.

Long live Patagonia

Some company names are more appropriate for the company’s purpose than others. Patagonia is considered by many to be the ultimate example of a company that represents something important and has managed to implement this in everything they undertake. They started by developing equipment for mountain climbers and have since expanded to manufacture clothing and equipment for activities such as skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, canoeing and cross-country running. Or, to be more precise, the things that they themselves consider to be unobtrusive sports. Activities that don’t require engines and that aren’t followed by a cheering audience. These are people who treat nature with respect.

Patagonia has the following purpose statement:

“Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

As regards the name, Patagonia has this to say about why they chose it in 1973:

To most people, especially then, Patagonia was a name like Timbuktu or Shangri-La, far-off, interesting, not quite on the map. Patagonia brings to mind, as we once wrote in a catalog introduction, "romantic visions of glaciers tumbling into fjords, jagged windswept peaks, gauchos and condors." It's been a good name for us, and it can be pronounced in every language. It’s not difficult to feel that there is a successful symbiosis between the name Patagonia and what they want to contribute to our planet.

The meaning of the name

There is a Norwegian proverb that states that there are "no shame in a name". Well, that’s wrong. I agree that a name shouldn’t be a disgrace, but unfortunately that is not the case. Changes may be deep-rooted, and not all names are equally viable. Companies often hang onto their names for practical, financial or nostalgic reasons, right until the time they just have to capitulate and realise that the world has changed.

This was the case with the Peace Corps, who came to us because their organisation was in no way the same as the one that was inspired by, and translated, the name Peace Corps in the wake of the war in the 1960s. Much good has been done in the name of the Peace Corps over the years, but it is very good if you don't have to explain and defend a name when you are in contact with new partners. After a good naming process, in which the employees participated to a large extent, they are now called Norec, a short form of the more comprehensive term Norwegian Exchange Cooperation. This reflects both their Norwegian connection and the core of what they do, namely exchange cooperation.

No name is an island

John Donne wrote No man is an island in 1624. In its modernised form, this expression means that humans aren’t designed to be isolated from one another, that we function best when we have other people and a community to relate to. I’ve allowed myself to embellish this saying. Because names don’t work either when they stand alone like deserted islands far away from everything else. Nor does it help if a name is so far from self-explanatory and outstanding that it needs a context and a framework.

Five things to help a name on the right track

It helps to have leaders who can deliver the message inherent in the name.
It's positive when a logo and a visual expression reinforces the impression you want to make.
It’s important to have an organisation that fits the name and stand behind it.
It’s a good idea to have a name that has something about it that entices people to boast on social media and suchlike.
If a name adds a little extra something to the company’s purpose, that’s a bonus.

In brief: everything should work together. It may be easier to persuade people to come along on the journey if you’re able to place a name in a relevant and interesting context .

Five brand names that smell of purpose

Google

This is a company where the name suits the company’s purpose perfectly.

Google is another way of writing this number: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is a googol, a 1 followed by a hundred zeros. Although mathematicians don't use this particular number very much, it's easy to see how well this huge number suits Google’s lofty ambitions. The company operates with the following purpose statement:

We shall organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Google search engines process and organise many billions of search results every day. These are huge figures – all around the world, 24 hours a day. So we can safely say their name suits them.

LEGO

This name came into being in Denmark back in 1934. It’s a simplification of the words “leg godt”, which means “play well”. These words describe something which, according to the company, represents both the name and their ideal – something that, with a little goodwill, you could call the company’s original purpose.

In 2008, on the other hand, Lego launched its Brand Framework, where they came up with their new purpose statement:

Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.

Here, the playing child has become a future designer and construction developer. Play has somehow turned into a kind of practice for adult life. Whether this is an upgrade or a derailment is in the eyes of the beholder.

It was when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp took over as Group President in 2004 that the emphasis was shifted from Legoland parks to Lego bricks and production of these bricks was moved to Mexico and Eastern Europe, and the company turned its fortunes around, from near bankruptcy to huge profits. 2017 was the first time in 13 years that net sales fell within the Lego group.

Nike

To bring inspiration to every athlete of the world.

Nike was a winged goddess in ancient Greece, and she was responsible for bringing victory in wars and peaceful struggles. She was lightning fast and flew down to Earth to present laurel wreaths to athletes who won important competitions. The goddess Nike thus contributes almost divine inspiration, and the name is fully in harmony with the company’s purpose.

Tesla

We shall accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Elon Musk is not a modest man. World domination isn’t enough for him, he’s set his sights on Mars and even further reaches. For Tesla, he’s borrowed the name of one of the greatest inventors ever seen. Nikola Tesla was a Serbo-Croatian Austrian who moved to both the US and Hungary and did great things in the field of sustainable energy (electricity), just like Musk is doing now. Dear Elon certainly has nothing against being associated with a major genius, and the combination of Musk, Tesla and the ambitious purpose are linked closely together. Note that Musk doesn’t talk about cars in his purpose, he regards Tesla as an energy company first and foremost.

Eika

By your side.

When the Norwegian banking alliance Terra needed to look at their business processes, they realised that they’d failed their partners – the many local banks all over the country – in many ways. In other words, they’d failed the very companies that supported the Terra alliance.

Mission was part of the process that ended up devising both a new name and a new purpose . In this case, they had to go back to former times in order to renew themselves. And what could be better than a tree when you need to find your roots?

When we rediscovered and revitalised the old name Eika (Oak), this was a kind of reassuring gesture to all the local banks, as each and every one of them – to a greater or lesser extent – had a relationship with the old oak tree that previously symbolised all the savings banks in Norway. When we supplemented the whole thing with “Ved din side” (By your side), we managed to make the name and purpose underpin and reinforce one another. The phrase “Ved din side” acts both as a message from the Eika alliance to local banks and as a message from local banks to their customers, as well as serving as Eika’s purpose.