Conference Theme

Throughout the conference a special focus will be maintained on how names act as capital and how this affects the linguistic and cultural aspects of the names involved.

Names act in various ways as capital. They act as resources in the production of goods and services and in the creation of economic opportunities and other forms of capital. Furthermore, there is a growing awareness that the value represented by names can be accounted for and that they should be considered as assets by themselves.

Brand names

“ If this business were to split up, I would be glad to take the brands, trademarks and goodwill, and you could have all the brick and mortar - and I would fare better than you. ”

John Stuart, president of Quaker Oats Company, in 1922

That names act as capital is most obvious in the case of brand names. In the modern world economy brand names embody a huge sum of capital. It is shown every year when Business Week magazine draws a list of the hundred most valuable brands world wide. The almost traditional number one of the list, Coca Cola, was estimated in 2007 at a total value of 65.3 billion US dollar, an amount that exceeds the Gross Domestic Product of countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Croatia. Follow ups in the list are hardly doing any less. The total value of the top ten global brands was estimated in 2007 at a tantalizing amount of 411.7 billion US dollar, that is more than the GDP of developed countries like Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland.

Of course, besides names brands are made up of typography and graphic design as well, and the aforementioned estimates might suffer from inaccuracies. But even if the value of brands has to be attributed for a considerable part to their graphical component and even if the aforementioned figures are somehow exaggerated, it is undeniable that brand names play a pivotal role in modern economies and that they greatly contribute to the assets of their owners. Brand names can be valued because they act as resources in the production of branded goods. Anyone with sufficient raw materials and adequate machinery can produce cola flavored soft drinks or hamburgers, but one can not produce Coca Cola or Big Macs without owning those specific brand names.

Brand names have become so abundant that in France they account for two out of every five words an average person knows, according to a study being carried out by French branding company Nomen.

Accountants are still reluctant to actually account for the values of brands or brand equities, as they are referred to in business economics. But whether they actually show up on balance sheets or not, it is widely acknowledged that brand names are valuable resources and assets for many companies and asserting the property rights of brand names is a major concern for those who own them. One of the threats they are facing is that brand names can become subject to cultural and linguistic appropriation. The clothing brand Lonsdale, for example, has been appropriated by certain Dutch youngsters (in Dutch media referred to as Lonsdalejongeren) to express their xenophobic feelings. Other brand names have become common nouns in colloquial speech (e.g. Kleenex, Sellotape, Aspirin), a process commonly referred to as genericization.

Contemporary companies often hold diversified portfolios of brand names. Unilever, for instance, sells the same range of cholesterol lowering products under the names Becel, Flora and Promise. Brand differentiation can serve various objectives. One of them might be the disidentification between the holding company and its divisions, which makes it much easier for the former to sell the latter when the strategic need to do so arises. We can also observe that partly because of their growing economic value, brand names adopt the form of fantasy names without any lexical roots, which makes these names easier to sell or to extent to other product ranges (e.g. Flickr, Javex, Viagra). Nevertheless, in developing new brand names linguistic characteristics still play an important role. Recently some commentators even stated that global brands make up a new international language, a 'lingua branda' as it was called by Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg. One does not need to know the Chinese words for 'softdrink' and 'chicken' to order a Coca Cola and McNuggets in Beijing.

Personal, geographical and other names

“ Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing. 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed. ”

Iago in Shakespeare's Othello

Just like brand names, personal names and geographical names act as resources and assets as well. One of the differences, however, is that these names usually act as capital outside the formal (monetarized) economy. The importance of names as 'symbolic capital' is reflected in standing expressions like 'defending one's name' and 'having a good name'. Furthermore, a growing body of research shows that the cultural connotations of names might have noticeable effects on the social and economic opportunities of their bearers. Perhaps for that reason, many parents 'invest' a considerable amount of time, effort and even money in choosing an appropriate name for their newborn children. Economic interests are even more conspicuously present in the strategies behind choosing stage names by performance artists. For many celebrities the branding of their names has generated a considerable source of income. Gabriela Sabatini perfumes, Björn Borg underwear and other signature brands show that a whole range of personal names have been branded into valuable assets.

“ A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. ”

Proverbs 22, verse 1

Once personal names and geographical names are regarded as brands, they face similar problems in terms of 'asset management'. Genericization for instance might also threaten the 'brand value' of certain toponyms, for example when 'Champagne' would be used to denote all sparkling white wines instead of only those from the Champagne region. The protection offered by law to the names of regional products, adds therefore greatly to the 'brand value' of the geographical names involved.

What has been said above about personal and geographical names goes mutatis mutandis for many other names, even for those that are normally considered to be outside the realm of commerce. Nevertheless the commercial value of other name types will in many cases be undisputed. Nobody will deny that huge sums of capital are embodied in the names of fictional characters like Harry Potter, Mickey Mouse, Pippi Longstocking, etcetera. And - last but not least - the recent speculative trade in internet domain names has shown once again that the value of names is a matter of immense economic importance.

Perspectives

Although it is quite clear that names act in various ways as capital, scholarly reflection on this issue is still nascent. Studying this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective could therefore lead to new insights on the cultural and linguistic status of names and the importance of names for the economy.