In the list of brand names, I deliberately left out a group of names that start with coco because I had decided that the final name would start with it. I didn’t disclose the brand name till now because I wanted to make sure I can register it for trademark and domain before anybody else. Now coco guruTM is a trademark of Sri Rama Industries. Just applied for registration about 20 days back and got the application number. Registration will be complete in about 18 months after which we can use ® (circled R) instead of TM signifying that it has been registered.
Reasoning behind the choice of name
Our Vision is to make coconut based products, hence the prefix coco. This gives us enough scope to grow around coconuts and also limits us or helps us focus towards opportunities of just coconuts.
We want to at the sweet part of the value chain in making coconut products. So we just want to position ourselves as experts in the field of coconuts. Not as growers, manufacturers, retailers, consultants etc. In fact we intend to not do any of them and just own the brand. It gives us flexibility to do what we want in the coconut product value chain.
Guru is a name that off course signifies expertise and leadership, also the word is universal. Guru is a valid word in Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit and all Indian Languages. It has also become an accepted word in English. Word guru resonates among Indians as traditional. Guru Bramha, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara ... List of English words derived from Sanskrit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Sanskrit_origin
There are several names that start with coco like cocoraj, cococare, cocojal, cococlear, cocovita, cocovida, cocofresh etc. Similarly there are several names that end with guru like travelguru, codeguru, logodesignguru, domainguru, gadgetguru, cellguru etc. This confirms that cocoguru can be an acceptable name.
The name might look a bit long and difficult to pronounce as a whole. But when broken down in coco and guru, they are extremely simple words with same vowels repeating at even letters. When written in Kannada, it doesn’t have any othu akshara.
How I got this name
I enumerated on many names that start with coco like cocomind, cocobay, cocobazaar, cocohub, cocomaster, cocoway etc and showed it to my dad. He liked cocomaster. As a side note, he said cocoguru without much conviction. I immediately liked it. We discussed with a few people, but got varied responses. I thought it is for us to decide about the final name as we are the ones who have the vision for the brand and the ones who are going to live it. I decided on coco guru and said that is final and I don’t need anybody’s approval for it, to avoid getting into infinite loop of name searching.
Criticisms about the name
1. coco and guru are common words and everybody uses and there is nothing unique or catchy about it.
2. coco is used for not only coconuts but also chocolates because of cocoa. So while I say the brand name over phone with out any aid of picture, the receiver may likely take it as a chocolate.
3. Koka shastra in Sanskrit relates to study on sex. And coco sounds similar to that. Dr. Shreesha Kumar pointed this to me ;-) Well, I don’t think even 1 in every 10 sanskrit scholar would know this let alone normal people.
Online Identities
I registered for domains cocoguru.net and cocoguru.in. Twitter id @cocoguru. My official email id would be keshavaram@cocoguru.net. Unfortunately cocoguru.com is not available. Somebody has acquired it and is not using it.
Useful tools for hunting names
1. Sanskrit Dictionary - spokensanskrit.de
2. Kannada Dictionary - kannadakasturi.com
3. English Thesaurus - thesaurus.reference.com
4. Spreadsheet/scripts for generating names with random characters
5. Blog - businessnamingbasics.com