How Many Possible Trade Names are There?

The number of possible distinct names of reasonable length is necessarily finite, and with the heavy demand for new names in some areas of current English-speaking commerce it seems possible that the supply might approach exhaustion. Numbers of possibilities cannot be calculated exactly, because most wordforms theoretically allowed by English phonology are too clumsy to be usable. However, Monte Carlo methods permit estimates of numbers of names which are plausible by present-day standards. These estimates suggest that the prospect of “running out of names” may not be merely fanciful. 1. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM Trade depends on names. Firms need distinctive names for themselves, for their brands, and for their individual products or services. Owners of trade names put considerable effort into protecting their rights in their names. We often read of cases where a firm takes legal action to try to prevent another business, perhaps in an unrelated business sector, using a name which they believe might be confused with their own name. Fifty years ago, it may have seemed as though there would always be abundant not-yet-used names to go round. Today, in a globalized society with more liberal business régimes, there are indications that it is becoming harder to find names which are available and suitable. Company names were commonly formed from owners’ surnames or place names or consisted of ordinary English words. But the days when names of those kinds were enough are behind us. Shortly after the English confectionery manufacturer *Address correspondence to: Geoffrey Sampson, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, Theo van Wijk, 9-88, UNISA, Preller Street, Pretoria 0003, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected] © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 2016 Vol. 23, No. 4, 342–360, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09296174.2016.1226429