I owned a business called “Warrillow & Co.” and our product was “The Warrillow Subscriber Network” and our biggest marketing program was “The Warrillow Summit”.  When the Warrillow in Warrillow & Co. decided to sell his business, things got tricky, which is what I wrote about in this article.

This week one of my fellow columnists at BNET, Donna Fenn, wrote a counterpoint to my article suggesting that a family name could be a good company name.  She used the example of Joel Bomgaars who started a software company called Bomgar, which is an anglicized derivative of his Dutch surname. Donna points to Bomgar’s success – they have been on the Inc. 500 list for two years running– as proof a family name can work as a company name.

Donna’s article forced me to refine my thinking on whether or not a surname is a good company name if your ultimate goal is to sell your business. I think Bomgar’s name works primarily because it is not immediately obvious that it is a family name. Bomgar sounds like a funky piece of technology and it is a little fun to say. Kind of like “Toyota” rolls off the tongue with a sense of playfulness which is why I think it worked for Kiichiro Toyoda.

Thanks to Donna, I would also now draw the distinction between naming a service and product business. Bloomberg as a company name works because the Bloomberg terminal is a thing that separates the business from Michael Bloomberg the person.

If you’re stuck with your surname in your company name, my suggestion is to focus on building product brands that eventually surpass the prominence of your company name.  The brothers Johnson & Johnson started the business but we have become even more familiar with their products like Tylenol and Band-Aid.

If you have a service business and a traditional surname like “Robertson” or “Smith” in your company name, I think it can be more difficult to separate yourself personally when it is time to sell your business. What do you think?