Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: choosing a community name

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Jerry Koch-Gonzalez started this topic that I've been pondering a
bit lately.  My personal feeling is that changing names should be
avoided unless there is a strong reason for doing so. A lot of
effort goes into establishing awareness of a community and it's
name -- particularly one trying to get established and recruit
members.  The name is a key part of that effort.  Having to build
recognition of a new name should be avoided by avoiding changing
names unless there is a strong reason to do so. Similarly careful
consideration should go into choosing the name initially.

--- PLEASE CHOOSE A UNIQUE NAME ---
I think we as a larger community should agree to an expectation that
communities will examine existing cohousing community names and not
choose a name similar to an existing community.

There are two instances that I know of where two communites have
names that are easily confused with another community - the
the Greek / Greece proposal which I wrote about recently at
http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg47126.html
Greece Cohousing Community
https://www.greececohousingcommunity.com

Greek Village Cohousing
https://www.greekvillagecohousing.com/

Also:

Heartwood Cohousing and long established in Bayfield, Colorado
http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com/

Heartwood Commons that is building in Tulsa Oklahoma
http://www.heartwoodcommonstulsa.com/

Internet domains which have to be registered in a process
that requires them to be unique but they can be quite similar.
Choosing a cohousing communities can currently choose any name they
want.

Minneapolis has recently had a significant name change of a major
lake. "Lake Calhoun" was named after a slaveowner and pro-slavery US
Sec of State. It was renamed in 2015-2018 (by various authorities) to
"Bde Maka Ska" which is Lakota/Dakota meaning Lake White Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bde_Maka_Ska#Naming

Many non-natives still struggle to remember and pronounce "Bde Maka Ska"
tho I have been pleasantly surprized that I can remember and pronounce
it fairly well.  I am hopeful that over time the name will get well
established in the minds of locals and become a shibboleth for us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth

Fred


Tho a name is fundamentally a tag - a way to refer to
something - for which any unique "word" will do, the conotations
are important too.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org