They say that you can tell a lot about a society by its advertising. If this is true, Irish society has shifted in the past twelve months as ‘staying in’ is becoming the new ‘going out’. You may have seen brands capitalise on this with changes in their messaging such as the new Smirnoff ‘Dress up and Stay in’ ads.

TV stations are also updating their programming with new shows such as RTÉ’s ‘Take on the takeaway’. This new show features celebrity chefs such as Kevin Dundon compete against the contestants’ take-aways to try to beat them in the area of price, speed of delivery and taste.

As consumers demand better value on their weekly shop, they are turning to review websites and forums to find out where to shop and what products to buy. One website that is catering for this effectively is CheapEats – a blog about eating well in Ireland while getting value for money.

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Ok, so you have found that great business idea – you’ve researched the market and written your business plan – but what are you going to name your company?

Some Irish companies name their business after the founder’s surname, e.g. O’Doherty Meats or Ryanair. Often people use the initials of their name or the type of business that it is, i.e. CRH stands for Cement Roadstone Ireland.

Here are some examples of interesting company names and the backstories behind them.

1. Google: The name started as a joke about the amount of information the search engine could search, or a “Googol” of information. (A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gave a presentation to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to “Google.”

2. Reebok: Reebok is simply an alternate spelling of “rhebok,” an African antelope. The company founders found the word in a South African edition of a dictionary won by Joe Foster, son of the Reebok founder J.W. Foster.

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