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Is your name a troublemaker?

I sometimes find myself in editing tussles over company names.

Companies can spend a great amount of time, brainpower and money developing their names, and they love them. That's understandable.

The problem arises when a company insists that the graphic version of its name—say, all in lower-case letters—be used throughout articles referring to the company.

Such demands give editors heartburn because we're supposed to be crafting clean, clear text. You know when you're reading clear text because you don't have to keep stopping and going back to reread a sentence that confuses you. And confusion is likely when proper nouns don't start with a capital letter, or alternate caps and lower-case letters, or turn to other rule-breakers that look cool on business cards but are confusing in text.

If you find that you are constantly "correcting" people about how they present your company name, then perhaps your name isn't helping your brand. Instead, it's a troublemaker.

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