What's in a Name? The Carrelle Company is Born on Labor Day

Sometimes strategic procrastination can be a good thing.

Except in my case, it wasn’t fully strategic. At all.

Wrapping up several years in the corporate world, launching my own business, getting my children settled into a new school year and doing right by my community commitments didn’t leave much time for one very important detail …

… naming my new company.

Sure, I looked at a few articles. Jotted down some ideas. But a name is critically important. And I didn’t have one yet.

Suddenly I found myself with one day to go before my self-imposed deadline to rebrand my social media accounts.

And that one day was Labor Day.

Holidays carry a lot of symbolism for me. My husband and I got engaged on New Year’s Eve. While our April wedding didn’t fall on Easter, many of our anniversaries have. Our daughter was born on a holiday and our son was born on the first day of a new season.

Our daughter was baptized on Valentine’s Day. By comparison, our son’s September baptism date seemed nondescript. Until 9/11 happened.

His baptism was the Sunday after the world changed forever. My out-of-town family members couldn’t come because … no planes were flying. I wondered if it would be a bad idea to proceed in light of the national tragedy. But I decided to move forward.

The church was packed, with people seeking solace and answers to something that has no answers. Through tears, a few people sought me out after the service to thank me for bringing my infant son to be baptized. They said it gave them hope for new beginnings.

Fast forward to 2015. I launched a blog on New Year’s Day. As a VP of corporate communications, I began it as an exploration of the future of the field.

Later that year, the company was acquired. I had the opportunity to move into marketing analytics. So I pivoted my blog as well into a learning experience in the new field.

But that wasn’t something I ultimately found myself wanting to spend hours of my weekend and evening time on. But what about how people learn new skills? That was interesting to me. So I explored learning in my blog for a while.

Then I attended a women’s leadership conference two Septembers ago at Fullscreen, a media company for creators and brands. The actor/producer/entrepreneur Reese Witherspoon was a surprise guest speaker.

A comment she made changed my life. When she was asked about her success in social media, she talked about being authentic. And she mentioned a big white space in the area, helping people shape their images and reputations through social media.

It was an a-ha moment for me. That’s what I wanted to do.

So two years ago, I began writing, researching and speaking about how professionals can build and boost their careers through social media. It’s a labor of love I did on the side in early mornings and evenings and weekends.

It’s a dream for me to start my own business in this area. And I am very fortunate to be able to do that this fall.

But a name. A name. I needed a name. Not to mention I needed a catchphrase that my upcoming book editor Cat Spydell recommended. (And creating a catchphrase is next up on my list.)

So I started doodling ideas. I analyzed tech company names. I looked at PR company names. Ad agencies. Podcasts. Hashtags. Even multi-hyphenate lives, also known as a “slash generation” with portfolio careers.

For further inspiration, I put all the descriptive words about me in the farewell notes from colleagues into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I made them into a word cloud, thanks to wordclouds.com. Here it is:

But in the end, it turned out to be a variation on a placeholder my husband Kevin put into his business plan. He’s opening a South Bay, California steakhouse with a seasoned restaurant veteran in the coming months. He asked me to lead the public relations and social media. And he noted Carelle Communications would do the work.

It’s an amalgamation of my name, Caroline Elizabeth Leach.

Yet alas, there’s already a Carelle fine jeweler.

But what about Carrelle with two r’s?

It’s been used as a baby name on rare occasions. Of English and German origin, it has wide-ranging meanings – farmer, strong, courageous, melody and song.

Strong and courageous spoke to me immediately. Initially I was puzzled by farmer. But a farmer equates to cultivation and growth. Perfect. How about melody and song? That speaks to my joy in writing, researching, consulting and speaking.

What are the other reasons I like The Carrelle Company?

1. It’s a takeoff of my name, which is my brand in a way … as our names are now our personal brands
2. It’s alliterative with the repeated “C’s.” I changed “communications” to “company” to keep the possibilities open for the future
3. The initial letters are evocative of “careers,” which I help to fuel through my work
4. The "car" sounds like an automobile, with motion, acceleration, speed and freedom
5. There’s a slight link with the other C-words related to what I do – communication, community, collaboration, consulting, critical thinking, connection
6. It sounds elegant and classic … and slightly French, my chosen language of study as a teen (which comes in slightly handy now as I struggle to learn Spanish)
7. It’s strong and it’s feminine with the “elle”
8. It’s unique … who else but me could use this name?!

And then there may be the name-letter effect in my dedication to the field of communications. According to research by Dr. Brett Pelham, a psychologist, people “disproportionately choose careers whose labels resemble their names.”

So just as “people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among dentists,” this could partly explain why I, as a Caroline, am attracted to communications.

And perhaps why, in my Google search of people named Carrelle, the two I found work in communications on other continents.

So that’s the story of how The Carrelle Company came to be.

And now it’s on to the business of writing, researching, consulting and speaking. I’m helping people grow their careers and business owners grow their companies through digital branding in social media.

This article originally appeared in my blog on how to build your career through social media. For more, visit carolineleach.com.