Company naming strategies in the Italian interior design industry

Abstract

The study focuses on naming etymology and semantics used by Italian interior design companies (manufacturers of furniture, light fixtures and accessories), represented in the Russian market. This involved examining the extent to which the names of Italian interior design companies corresponded to the established naming practices of companies, identifying the strategies used therein, as well as developing a classification of names based on etymological and semantic analysis. The most common naming strategies were grouped into four categories that appear the most productive: Proper Nouns (54.4% of all names studied), Words and Phrases in Everyday Use (26.6%), Abbreviations (13.1%), and Geographical Names (5.9%). The research outcome will be the identification of the most efficient way of naming companies in the interior design industry, as well as a linguocultural analysis of the most frequently used types of names. The analysis of the material offers the opportunity to speculate on the relevance of national identity to the process of design company naming.

Keywords

• naming
• branding
• marketing
• interior design
• italian