Apartment rental site AllApartments abandoned that name in favour of the more up-market image of SpringStreet. Names can not only constrict your business and shape the expectations of your customers but they can hurt more deeply than that. Having to change names and market a new identity, which costs dearly. Defending legal action over the name with legal costs and damage to your reputation. Losing customers or worse still, never gaining customers you should have.
Names can confuse consumers and spark court battles.
Unfortunately for them they couldn't register the name as a trademark. But Creditcomm could and did. In 1999 they were prosecuted under the Fair Trading Act for misleading the public by naming one of their products Slims. ETA claimed that Slims referred to the thickness of the chip whereas the prosecution argued that the name Slims implied the product would make you thinner. The name Slims cost ETA a hefty sum in fines.