It's not easy coming up with a company name.  You can come up with what you think is a creative, original name, plug it into Google, and quickly see that it really is a big world out there.  All your best ideas seem to have all been thought before.  And all the good domain names have been taken long ago. 

Getting the right name matters.  As Malcolm Gladwell has written in Blink, first impressions make a big difference.  Forget the two-minute warning.  You have about two seconds until someone has jumped to a conclusion from which they will reluctantly return. 

So where did Truman Company come from?  According to Igor, a branding firm with some helpful thinking on the topic, there are different types of company names.  Functional names are accurate but boring.  Invented names are distinctive but hard to remember.  Experiential names are effective but often overused.  Evocative names are engaging but need to hit the mark.  (Igor is an evocative name, in contrast to functionally named NameWorks)

When we sat down to come up with a name for our company, we knew we wanted to focus on executive-level marketing and strategy.  So "E2E Advisors" became a possibility (we still have the URL).  But that seemed a little obscure and ultimately too limiting.  Then we considered some invented names, but they ended up feeling like we threw syllables into a hat, pulled a few out, and strung them together.  For experiential names, the english words were well-trod (e.g. anything to do with navigation, mountains, or Walden Pond), and the foreign words were clever but obscure (maru = japanese for circle). 

So we set the naming exercise aside and worked on our values and positioning.  We knew that our opportunity was in helping companies engage senior executives as a distinct marketing segment.  We knew that the key to engaging senior executives is substantive conversation on strategic issues and trusted, collaborative relationships among peers.  By helping our clients bring an insightful perspective with a humble approach, we would help them create more successful executive-level marketing programs.

How to capture this in an evocative way?  Fate seemed to have pulled up a chair at our brainstorming session.  Truman is the name of an adorable dog belonging to one team member, and President Harry Truman the boyhood hero of another.  A little research confirmed that the name Truman fit the bill quite nicely.  The Presidential connection suggests work with leaders and senior executives.  Few Presidents rival Harry Truman's reputation for humility and integrity.  Truman's leadership in creating the United Nations and NATO speak to a prescient understanding of collaborative relationships in a globalized world.  And his whistlestop campaign to upset Dewey in 1948 demonstrates that Truman was as effective a marketer as President and politician.  Fortuitously, Truman's life and values had a strong resonance with our work. 

Thus, Truman Company was born. 

A rose by any another name may smell as sweet, but not necessarily a company.  Can you imagine Steve Jobs leading a company called Kumquat Computer?  I didn't think so.