Types of Brand Names -with Examples
Business names can be divided in several types but legally, based on distinctiveness, following classifications are more commonly used in most countries such as USA, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada.
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Fanciful Brand Names
These include the business names coined by combining random letters or arrangement of letters and numerals. Fanciful brand names have no meaning. Examples of fanciful brand names include Exxon, Verizon, Pepsi, Kodak, Instagram, Serco, Ikea, Dozro, Vivendi.
The name Kesco (Helsinki, Finland based retailing company) was selected because it was meaningless and fanciful. [RD]
Arbitrary Names
These business names generally consist of dictionary words however the nature of products or services offered is irrelevant to the meaning. For example, ‘Apple’ is a registered arbitrary brand name for selling computers – in other words the name is used in meaningless context in relation to the products and services of the company. It would be considered generic with no legal protection in case the Apple company literally starts selling apples.
Shell (company sells gasoline, not shells) is another example of arbitrary business name.
Anthem is a health insurance company in USA – it does not create musical songs. Therefore, it is an example of arbitrary business name.
Please see more examples of arbitrary business names, down below in this article.
Suggestive Names
Such business names suggest and allude (but not clearly tell) about the nature of products or services, the company sells. One can understand about the type of company products through a guesswork after getting suggestive hints from the company name. For example, Airbus (aircraft manufacturing company) is suggestive name. Another example is KitchenAid (kitchen appliance manufacturer) because one can allude or guess that it would be about kitchen related products.
Rite Aid is a US pharma company and another example of a suggestive business name.
Descriptive Brand Names
Such name not only suggests the nature of company products but goes one step further that it ‘immediately’ and easily describes what the company offers as services or products. Descriptive wordmarks are generally not protected against infringement cases unless the names has gained some ‘acquired distinctiveness’ in certain territory or country.
Examples include, United Airlines, Global Payments.
Another example is American Airlines.
One more example is Pharmaceutical Product Development, a US based global company for pharmaceutical research and development, now acquired by another US company Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Hotels.com and Booking.com are more examples of descriptive business names.
Sometimes, it becomes a challenge to distinguish between descriptive and generic name, and only courts can decide.
Generic Names
Generic names are generally not allowed to be registered as protected marks. Generic wordmarks become excessively popular and lose distinctiveness. Courts or international treaties may also declare some brand names as generic, for example, aspirin, laser, robot.
In US legal framework, a generic name can be any word achieving no distinctiveness, for example, car, booking, hotel, travel. For example, in January 2021, USPTO decided that Apple Inc cannot register the term ‘smart keyboard’ because it is generic term for an advanced keyboard. [RD]
According to USPTO, fanciful and suggestive brand names are the strongest types of business names which are relatively easier to protect against any attempt of infringement. On the other hand, descriptive and generic names are weak marks. [RD]
You can know more about generic brand names in a separate article on Dozro website.
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