Affluent Flowers?

Picked up some flowers the other night from a place called Affluent Flowers. I should first mention that the lady who helped me there was polite and helpful, and the flowers I purchased were very nice and well-priced.

That said…

While I didn’t go there specifically so that I could write this post, I was thinking about their name even before I walked into the store.

You didn’t call this place ‘Affluent Flowers’ because everything here costs a lot, did you?

No, the woman behind the counter assured me that the name “Affluent” had been chosen primarily because it starts with “A.” The owner is hoping that as a result, his store will show up near the beginning of alphabetical listings. I’m sure the question’s been asked before, but is this still a relevant concern in most industries these days? I’d argue that it’s not. I found the flower shop by using Google Maps; I just wanted something that was on my way. For flower shops—and maybe most single-location retail stores—listing yourself in map-integrated online directories is probably more critical than choosing a name that starts near the beginning of the alphabet.

But if you do insist on going with an “A” name, I think you can do better than “Affluent.” During our conversation, the employee told me that someone had posted a scathing review of the store based on the name alone, saying that it fed into existing local snobbiness. She said the owner had seen the review and set the reviewer straight, simply by telling him to look up the word. (I poked around online and couldn’t find the review or the response.) I checked the definition, thinking maybe there was some common meaning that I was missing. But no, not really—the first defition is “having an abundance of wealth,” just as I (and the online reviewer) had thought.

Maybe he was going for definition #2: “abundant.” But that’s beside the point, isn’t it? It’s a bit like naming your shipping company “Junk,” and telling skeptical customers, “No no, ‘Junk’ as in a Chinese ship.”