A Name Is a Name Is a … Or Is It?

“What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”

Thus wrote Shakespeare, but a silly thing at work the other day made me wonder.

One of my tasks is processing applications, and late in a very busy day, I picked up an application for a company whose name was Gardening Gnomes Landscaping.  I’ll admit, I like garden gnomes … at least the cute ones … and probably because there are still two in my parents’ yard that had previously been in my grandma’s garden almost as long as I can remember, garden gnomes make me smile.

I loved the company’s name and kind of wished that there would be something wrong with their application so that I needed to contact them.  There wasn’t, but I just wanted to tell them how awesome their name was.

I mentioned the name to a couple of colleagues.  One got it and was just as tickled as I was, but the other one looked at me perplexed and said, “Why would they do that to themselves?”

The answer seemed blatantly obvious to me.  I’d hire a landscaping company called Gardening Gnomes Landscaping in a heartbeat. If I’m being honest with myself, I’d probably be tempted to be completely irresponsible and hire them without any research or references or any of the things a responsible adult should do before paying a company money to do something.  The name gives me such a warm, fuzzy, trusting feeling, all because of the association with one of the most important people in my life, my grandma, who also happens to have been a fabulous and passionate gardener. 

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I don’t need any landscaping done, and the company is based in a different city, but it did make me think.  How much weight do I put in how things … or people … are named?  I’d like to think that I’m not really influenced by things like that but my reaction makes me wonder. 

Would a rose called by another name, really smell just as sweet if the name made me think of something stinky?  Could I be objective enough to know? Or would my senses be misled by old memories?