As a solo-preneur, all aspects of my business move when I move. Most recently, our family moved from Nova Scotia, Canada, to Quebec, Canada. Although we are still in my country of birth, each province has different rules around business registration. Turns out since the first language of Quebec is French, all businesses registered here must have a French name. This poses an issue for me for two reasons: 1) I don’t speak French, although I do understand enough to get by, I definitely can not conduct business in French, and 2) if I wanted to revert to using my name for business, legally (only since moving to Quebec) I am no longer Corinna Rake, but Corinna Wiik (my birth name – on all my legal documentation).

I have been thinking about re-branding Rake Consulting to something that is a bit more catchy, as well as informative to what I actually do.  Something like “Corinna Rake’s Web Design” or ??  Of course the other problem with using my name, besides the above issue of ‘Rake’ not actually being MY name anymore, is that ‘Corinna’ is difficult to spell and pronounce correctly!  Two big no-no’s in the branding world. Switching to my maiden name of “Wiik” is even worse, both names would be notoriously misspelled and mispronounced! (Wiik is Finnish, pronounced “week” – which, with the advent of the Nintendo “Wii”, may not be as hard to explain as it was when I was a child!)

What’s a business-owner to do?  Perhaps a brand survey or contest of some kind is in order? I would be interested to hear your thoughts. Click here to leave your comments. Thanks!