As some of you may already know, I’m a professional freelance writer with a sizable focus on product reviews. I take a look at quite the range of consumer electronics and gadgetry, like cell phones and digital cameras. One thing that I have noticed is that companies typically take one of two approaches when it comes to naming their products.

Some companies choose to stick with a “word” or a “name” of some kind. For example, you all know about the Apple MacBook. By contrast, a company like HP decides to sell its laptops based on a model number. For example, you may or may not know about the HP G60-530CA. Not as catchy, right? The advantage is that it can be more descriptive or defining that a “simple” name. The disadvantage is that it can be terribly confusing for the consumer.

Whichever strategy that you choose to use when naming the products that your own company sells, there is one rule that you should always follow: Make sure that the product name is easily reproducible and cannot be misinterpreted as something else. This aids in online searches, for starters, but it also helps consumers better differentiate between seemingly similar products.

I’m currently taking a look at speaker system and it’s called the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim. The “Hercules” and “Slim” parts of the name are fine, but there are some potential spacing issues. When I first read the product name, I read it as XPS 2.140 rather than as the XPS 2.1 40. That space between the 2.1 and 40 is important, because the former presumably points toward the 2.1 configuration and the latter points toward a model series. Without the space, the “2.140″ sounds like something different entirely.

Beyond simple spacing issues, also be mindful of how the product names are spelled. There is a place to be creative, but you don’t want a competitor to have a similarly named product stealing your limelight.