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Names are powerful: Choose great names to influence others in choosing your web site...and respect others by spelling their name correctly.

We all react and respond to names. When you see certain names, they make you feel a certain way.  Some names inspire confidence or implied effectiveness...and others don't.  This is true for human names as well as domain names.

"Steel" versus...

In the old sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati there was a scene in which the strong boyfriend of the show's leading lady, Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson), named "Steel" met Les Nessman, the radio station's wimpy and nerdy news director:

Steel: I like to think that a person's name says a lot about the type of person he is. What was your name again?

Les: (pauses) Les.

Note: Above quote courtesy of TV.com:  Episode Guide > Season 2, Episode 5: Jennifer Falls in Love.

This is definitely not a situation where "Less is more"...especially compared to "Steel".

What Started this Name rant

I received an envelope addressed to: "Kar Kasca".  Better yet, enclosed in the envelope was a check made out to: "Kar Kasca"...and since my bank accepted the deposit, it's "no worries", right?  Yes, except to me, the person receiving the letter.

Try your Name here...if you dare

And if you don't think your name and its spelling make a difference, then try your name at the Kabalarians.com website...if you dare, since the Kabalarians tell you both the good...and bad aspects of your name, e.g.,  "Though the name Kar creates the urge to be creative and original, we stress through a scattered and emotional nature, you suffer frustration."
- Wow, now I'm really glad that "Karl" is my name!

Also I want you to know that I'm not usually very sensitive about name spellings, but sometimes it does get under my skin a little.

Email versus Snail Mail

It's just that within a few hours I received the letter above, as well as having someone Reply to an email addressing it to: "Carl".  So think about it: This person's known me for years, seen countless emails from me, as well as the email they were replying to...and they still addressed their message to "Carl", instead of "Karl" - yikes!

Is it possible that we're all getting just a little too careless about Names?  What might your supervisor have said in your evaluation?
- Perhaps something like: "Lack of attention to detail"?

Customer Relations and Names

Bottom Line:If it's possible this might get under your customer's (or vendor's or associate's) skin a little then take the extra 5 seconds to look up their name in your contact manager or online.  If nothing else, just start typing their name into Google and let "Google Suggest" show you the spelling (see image at right).

Simpler yet: Just look at the "From" or Signatures on emails.

With a name like "Kasca"...it has to be good!

Taking off of an SNL (Saturday Night Live) sketch about Smucker's slogan about their jam: If the name is that bad, it must be great:

Dan Aykroyd:  Mangled Baby Ducks.  That’s right, Mangled Baby Ducks!  Picture a jam so good that you’d dare to call it Mangled Baby Ducks!  Great Jam!  It’s beautiful jam!

Quote courtesy of SNL Transcripts Season 1 > Episode 17: Jam Hawkers.

And please note that Smucker's does make great jam!

Domain Names & Cyber Squatting

But I'm used to people misspelling my last name.  Most people spell it "Kaska".  So much so that I tried to purchase the Kaska.com domain name, simply so I could catch all of the misdirected emails I was certain were being lost in the vacuum of the internet.

But some cyber-squatter had snapped up that domain for a huge amount of money.  Even a GoDaddy.comsearch today shows Kaska.com as having a "Premium Domain Name" price of $5,400.  And I guess I can't complain about cyber-squatting in this case, since "Kaska" isn't really my name.

Tip: Register your company's name or brands...and their misspellings so you won't lose business (either online or in your inbox).

Comments - Have a Misspelled Name or Cyber-Squatting horror story?

Let me know...