What's in a Name?
Picking a name for a business is so hard!!! I do not know how people come up with these catchy names like "Google" or "Xerox." Especially when it is so easy to come up with a terrible name - like "Go Daddy" (what does that even mean!?) or Xfinity (not only a bad name, but everyone with a brain knows that it's still Comcast).
Anyway, we really struggled with what to name our farm. We wanted to give off a vibe of something zen and relaxing, but we also wanted a nice brand for our coffee once we start packaging. Another consideration is that whatever name we picked needed to have a good logo option to go with it.
To help us pick a name we asked advice from friends, brainstormed a ton, posted on Reddit in the coffee section asking for help and I even called into my favorite podcast, the Because Show, to ask for them for ideas.
In the end, we picked our name kinda by accident. Doug, Mike and I were driving to Lahaina and it started to rain even though it was very sunny - hardly a cloud in the sky and I said "hey, it's sun-raining."
"Sun-rain" was just the (very creative) name I made up for when it is raining even though it isn't cloudy -- a common occurrence in Hawaii. Probably a big part of why there are so many rainbows. Doug started making fun of me saying that "sun-rain" is not a thing. Of course he had to prove me wrong right then and googled it. As soon as he read "sunshower" (the real name for "sun-rain") outloud, we unanimously agreed that should be our name. We looked it up and it wasn't taken; the rest is history :)
For fun, here are some of our name rejects:
- Ennervate -- a spell from Harry Potter that wakes people up from unconsciousness
- Rennervate -- the same spell from different HP lexicons (I told you these were bad haha)
- Blackacre Farms -- never a real contender but funny to lawyers....
- Nonchalance -- I actually liked this one but Doug thinks that it sounds lazy, and I do see his point
- Hokulele-- this means "shooting star" in Hawaiian. We were thinking maybe we would like something along the lines of "the stars were alligned" or "serendipity" to express how lucky it was that we are able to buy this property and start this business, but there is no word for that in Hawaiian. Plus, we didn't want to overstep our bounds by giving our farm a Hawaiian name when we aren't from Hawaii.
- Second City Coffee -- an homage to Chicago - we actually really liked this one! But another Kona coffee farm already had it.
- Moonshower -- This was jokingly discussed. It is just way too hippy-ish for us. It sounds like the name of a woman who runs a commune and throws pottery.
- Starshower -- same problem as moonshower.
- Valinor -- a mythical island from Lord of the Rings where only undying souls can go. Doug hasn't read any of Lord of the Rings (I know!) - but this was too nerdy, even for us haha.