Hey Man, Is That A Portmanteau?

Like wasn't that a Bob Seeger song?  I Think I'm Goin' To Portmanteau.... 

Okay, today's discussion is on portmanteaus, what they are and why they can be valuable.  Officially, or at least, according to Wikipedia, a portmanteau is the combining of two words to make a new one.  They are all over the place, Microsoft, Amtrak, OfficeJet, Everlast, these are all portmanteaus.  Reading through the Wiki article, they also bring words such as 'spork' and 'Billary' as portmanteaus.

The World of Business and Product Names Without a Portmanteau in Sight

Uh oh.  If we as a species couldn't combine words to create names for our businesses or products life would be a lot harder.  Many would argue that it would be a better world if all company names were like Apple or Oracle or Progressive; but these are in limited supply, next to impossible to find and tough to defend from a trademark standpoint.  Without portmanteaus we'd only have real words or coined names ala Kodak, Xerox, and Froozle (which I just now made up and may be a bit of a portmanteau).

What's the Point?

Probably somewhere on this sight we've already talked about 'Word Combinations' as a naming methodology - these are portmanteaus.  NameBuilder Name Creation software uses a portmanteau technique as one of its name creation components.  The point here is to think strongly about combining words when thinking about creating a name for your company or product.  One of the reasons we use this technique is because it can help you get started with a list of potential ideas and if successful you can get across a decent product or business attribute in your name.  Additional benefits to the portmanteau technique include a slightly better chance of finding a matching .com domain and a defendable trademark.

Next time you are stuck, think portmanteau.