What to name a company

People often ask me how we came up with the name Golden Gekko? Recently someone even asked if we were on crack when we came up with the name.

I wish that I could say that we spent months elaborating the best name long lists of pros and cons like Amazon picked a name that began with the letter A to come up first in directories and that could later encapsulate any kind of business.

The truth is that we were sitting in cafe in Phnom Penh April 2005 watching a couple of geckos running up and down the walls. At the time we were thinking about setting up a clothes brand as well as mobile games development company. The gecko was a nice symbol which would work great as a logo just like the alligator on Lacoste clothes. Golden was a symbol for the wealth we would create. Golden Gekko was also a parody on the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall street. We did a quick trade mark and domain name check which didn't result in any conflicts and the next day the company was born with the name GoldenGekko.

So no, we were not on crack when me and Daniel Karlström came up with the name but I cannot really say that we spent a lot of time considering alternatives. So far we don't regret it.