NAMING YOUR CO-OP / CONDO, P.2

 
Are there legal minefields to avoid in choosing a name? Fewer than you'd think. You can't trademark a common word like "apple," although logos containing common words can indeed be trademarked — Apple Computer, Apple Bank, Apple Records.

Trademark law is as much art as it is science, but generally, different business can all be called "Apple" so long as the businesses are distinct and unlikely to cause confusion. The same holds usually in terms of building names: common words such as "towers," "hall," "arms," "plaza," "gardens," and the like are all fair game. New York City is home to both a condo called Chelsea Modern and a rental apartment house in Chelsea, The Modern.

"The interesting thing with naming buildings is there are not that many legal issues, meaning you could pretty much call your building whatever you want to call it," says Foden. "Trademark law is involved, and while Donald Trump is a branding guru, if your last name really was Trump, you could call your building some variant of that. I had a friend in New York named Charles Smart who called his company Smart Software. Other companies wanted to as well, and objected, but he could do it because it was his name."

What's in a Name? And Where Do You Find It?

One of the best ways of naming your co-op or condo is to keep with history and tradition —as the board of The Pinehurst did in discovering the building's original name, or the board at Hardenbrook House did after discovering the area's legacy. Some standard sources can help. (See sidebar.)

So, in the end, what's in a name? History, tradition, and branding, but also an intangible sense of a place with its own identity. As Wolgast puts its, "It's a nice way to think of a building. It's not just a stack of bricks that you go home to at night."

Illustration by  Danny Hellman

Adapted from the November 2010 issue of Habitat. For complete articles from issues going back to 2002, join our Archive >>