What is in a name?

Tom, Rick, Shelly...just names.  But I would guess that as soon as you read those names something popped into your head.  An image of someone you know.  Maybe it is a good image...maybe it was a person who bullied you long ago.  Either way, those letters strung together to make a word are more than just a name.

For several years I toyed with the idea of starting my own apparel brand.  I had not years, but decades of experience in designing product, sourcing goods, marketing those items and selling them.  I knew what I and other athletes like me wanted in endurance apparel.  

One main thing was holding me back.  A name.  What to call it? A lot of brands utilize the founders name, but neither of my names work particularly well.  Chance?  Maybe for some perfume but not many people want to "take a chance" on their apparel.  Regina?  That is even worse.  In Latin it means queen.  How many guys are going to want to wear a brand called Queen?  Not to mention the whole giggle inciting pronunciation of it by every one outside the US.  Yep, it rhymes with the lady parts, and I don't mean Mulva.

I wanted a name which represented the high-end top shelf nature of the product.  For the better part of the year I let the thought linger in my wee brain.  Then one day it came to me.  I liked the idea of Regina=Queen=Top Shelf...maybe I could do two separate names and use the Latin word for king for the men's products and Regina for the women's products.  Before I could even take the time to look up what the Latin word for king is, rex if you must know, I dismissed the idea. Having two names would mean two logos, two tag lines.  Basically double the work.

Then it struck me.  The terms king/queen=royalty.  Why not "real", pronounced Ree-Al, as it means royal in Spanish.  And that was it.  I decided to put a tilde above the "a" so that people would know it was just the English word "real".  As in keep it real.  I know the tilde doesn't go there but in branding all is fair.

And that is how I came up with the name for my new apparel brand.

Chance "Don't call me ReeJiNa" Regina

This was taken from a journal entry from October 20th 2018