The Name Game

Companies, like people, do not always like the names they were born with--and more of them than ever are doing something about it. For many U.S. corporations, the name change has become almost a symbol of growth, energy and aggressiveness. Last week Monsanto Chemical Co., which has diversified into electronics and building materials, got formal approval from its stockholders to become just plain Monsanto Co. Fairbanks Whitney, hoping to get an image with a bang from its gunmaking subsidiary, plans to rename itself Colt Industries. Riddle-Airlines, whose name has long been just that to many people, is about to switch to Airlift International Inc. Olin Mathieson is asking customers to "please, call us by our first name," and the onetime General Shoe Co. is nailing down its new name with a "Do You Know Genesco?" advertising campaign.

More Suitable Face. Most companies change their names because they have moved into new activities. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., which now ranges far from Minneapolis and sells computers and space capsule instrumentation as well as regulators, will be streamlined this month into Honeywell Inc. Because it is diversifying into plastics, Dayton Rubber Co. has become simply Dayco. Philadelphia's Girard Trust Corn Exchange Bank, which now has little to do with corn, has simplified its name to Girard Trust Co. Many boards of directors are persuaded to drop regional or national names as their firms' international business increases; the Texas Co. adopted the name of the gas it markets, becoming just plain Texaco, and no one can blame the Cuban-American Sugar Co. for making a post-Castro change in its name to North American Sugar Industries.

On the West Coast, just about every onetime planemaker but Lockheed has dropped the old "aircraft" from its corporate title to reflect involvement in the wilder blue of aerospace. Seeking to show a more suitable face to the public, Hardware Mutual Insurance, which was founded 60 years ago by members of the Wisconsin Retail Hardware Association, recently chose to become Sentry Insurance. Standard Railway Equipment Manufacturing Co. juggled 200 names and picked Stanray Corp. when it added an aviation equipment division.

Western Tablet & Stationery Corp. has changed to Westab, and American Steel Foundries to Amsted Industries.

Expense & Bother. The theory is that company names should never end on soft--and therefore weak--sounds.

A Manhattan company aptly named Names Inc. uses a computer to mix word and letter combinations in searching for suitable new names for its corporate clients. The cost of name changing, depending on the size and international range of a company, can run from $25,000 to $5,000,000. There is, of course, the need for new plant signs, new stationery and new bank checks bearing the company's new name, and national companies must also bear both the small legal expense and the bigger bother of reregistration in 50 states and with government agencies. Many companies, as a result, prefer to create a slim and progressive image simply by stressing their initials. That technique has worked well for such companies as IBM, TWA, A. & P., A.T. T., G.M.

and G.E. But stressing initials can have its perils; it would not work very felicitously, for example, for American Radiator & Standard Sanitary.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.