A brand name is one of the most important ways a company can set the first impression for a customer, and the name Acaboom is something people often ask us about.
The truth is, branding was a tricky part of launching our business. We wanted a name that showed what we stood for – a way for agents to protect their position, to battle against that status quo and to ‘lead from the front.’ With so many military connotations, we looked to the Greeks, and we quickly felt an affinity to Aca, which comes from the Ancient Greek name “Aléxandros”.
It is composed of two elements: “aléxō (ἀλέξω)” (keep off, turn aside, guard, protect, defend, help) plus “anḗr (ἀνήρ) andrós (ἀνδρός)” (man “adult male”, husband), which either means “defending men, or protector of men”.”
Aca on its own, explained what we stood for – but not how!
Quite quickly, we settled on boom, which, as most people know, is a period of increased commercial activity – or rapid and significant sales growth.
It was perfect for us – as Acaboom is the combination of defending (one’s current position) whilst enjoying a period of significant sales growth.
You might be interested in some of the stories of other brands, too as reported by Business Insider.
Google
Google’s name emerged from a brainstorming session at Stanford University. Founder Larry Page was coming up with ideas for a massive data-index website with other graduate students.
One of the suggestions was “googolplex” one of the largest describable numbers. The name “Google” came about after one of the students accidentally spelled it wrong. Page then registered his company with this name.
Gap
The first Gap store opened in 1969 with the goal of selling good jeans. The name referred to the generation gap between adults and kids.
Lululemon
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson came up with the yoga-wear brand’s name because he thought Japanese people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. He wrote in 2009:
“It was thought that a Japanese marketing firm would not try to create a North American sounding brand with the letter ‘L’ because the sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics. By including an ‘L’ in the name it was thought the Japanese consumer would find the name innately North American and authentic.”
“In essence, the name ‘lululemon’ has no roots and means nothing other than it has 3 ‘L’s’ in it. Nothing more and nothing less.”
IKEA
Founder Ingvar Kamprad chose the brand name by combining the initials of his own name, IK, with the first letters of the farm and village, where grew up in southern Sweden: Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd.