Not every client may be ready to give up the comfort and safety of a more traditional or more obvious name, but none can say that, in choosing to work with a company called A Hundred Monkeys, they didn't expect something a bit radical. "We didn't really ask for bids from other companies," Martin Maier says. "A Hundred Monkeys has managed to stand out in a crowded field and say something unique with their own name. We figured that if they could do that for themselves, they could certainly do it for us."

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Sidebar: What's in a Name?

Software, services, new companies -- A Hundred Monkeys has named it all. Here are a few of the company's tips for coming up with a great handle.

Dare to be different. "If you're the first in a field, it works to have a name that is somewhat descriptive. But once you're facing lots of competition, a descriptive name is no longer very useful," says Danny Altman, creative director. "You end up with Career Central, Career Link, Careers-R-Us. The whole point of a name is to stand out. Look at what others in your field are doing, then do the opposite."

Don't name by committee. "Coming up with a good name is only half of the problem. The other half is persuading a company to execute an idea," says Steve Manning, managing director. "You have to fight the organizational tendency to involve absolutely everyone in the process. That's a sure path to 'vanillacide' -- when nobody can agree on anything truly radical and cool, so it gets diluted and diluted until it's acceptable and utterly boring."

Scare yourself. "We're all about trying to get our clients to take risks, so we typically include a couple of names in the mix designed to freak them out," Manning says. "If there are a couple of ridiculously scary names on the list, they'll be more likely to 'compromise' on a name that is daring enough."