Hades nie zawsze funeralny – szkic o fortunności nazw podmiotów gospodarczych

Abstract

The article falls within the chrematonomastic research strand in which a proper name is understood to be a utilitarian message with a pragmatic potential, one that ensues from both statutory requirements and marketing rules. The focus is on the topic of auspicious economic entity names and especially their constituents – lexical units that are supposed to make the name and entity stand out in the market, yet should not be misleading as to what the company’s scope of activity is. The names of firms and premises with the mythological firmonym Hades from various sectors (147 items) from all over Poland, sourced from Panorama Firm, a large business directory, were examined. Quantitatively, the collated material shows that most marketing chrematonyms with this component can be found in the funeral sector, as accounted for by the funeral and thanatological connotations the mythological lexeme evokes by way of its cultural meaning. Much more seldom, name coiners from various sectors (incl. textile, hotel, building, transport, automobile companies) employ the word as well, rendering firmonym-using identification possibly difficult, misleading or nigh on impossible.