What's In A Name?

Today's Silver Price: $31.66/t.oz

I originally registered my business name as Silver Current Jewels. Drove out to the County Clerk's office and registered a sole proprietorship. I think it was about $35 to register. A sole proprietorship is the simplest form of business. Soon I will incorporate which will legally separate my business completely from my personal finances. Incorporation is a bit more pricey... I have to figure out what it's going to cost. I see those commercials for Legal Zoom all the time saying they can help you incorporate your business. Maybe I'll check them out.

So Silver Current Jewels became official in 2010. However I realized that I also wanted to sell paintings. And perhaps start making furniture someday... who knows what else! So I changed the business name to Silver Current Designs. I figure I can have different product lines such as Silver Current Jewels, Silver Current Home, Silver Current Body... the possibilities are endless. At the time I had thought I would only be selling sterling silver jewelry. I did not foresee the drastic jump in silver prices which would force me to find other materials! However silver will always be the main focus of my jewelry, so I do not see a need to change the name.

I have read that a business name should be short and simple; easily remembered. It also should reflect the product or service that the business makes or provides. Silver Current Jewels would have been more descriptive of the business and the product, but I felt it was too limiting. Rather than creating multiple businesses to sell multiple types of products, I changed the name to a more generalized version.

The idea for the business name came from a novel by Ursula Hegi called Floating In My Mother's Palm. In the novel the main character is floating in a river at night and the author describes the flow of the water. "Where the two currents merged, a silver line shimmered under the moon, shifted, and adjusted itself, over and over." This is such a wonderfully descriptive line which has stuck with me for many, many years and has inspired the name of my business.

Will Silver Current Designs become a household name? Who knows! That's the exciting thing about life- you'll never know what's possible until you try it!