Inklings the company came from a simple idea, designing toys based on what a kid’s strange, colorful imaginary friend might look like. Great, we had the idea and basis of the company down. Check.
Now the easy part- coming up with a name that perfectly encompasses all our hopes and dreams of passing down the importance of creativity and imagination to the next generation, while keeping it simple, but also not too basic, but you don’t want it to be too abstract, but it needs to sound cool… and…
(Dear reader: it was not easy. The writer of this portion of the email blast tends to put overwhelming weight on even simplest of tasks, so this was to say the least a PROCESS, her anxiety is spiraling as we speak just writing about it. Please read on.) We threw ideas around, I honestly can’t remember any of them now that I’m thinking back, I do remember trying shortened words, or cutesy versions of words. None of which clicked for us.
Then randomly one day, it came to us, Inklings. I don’t know where it came from, or how we thought of it. But it sat there for a minute, we looking at each other while having some wine on a Friday night. An inkling, having a slight idea or spark. It worked. Inklings come from a spark of imagination. We all agreed.
The next part in naming a company is when you google the name to see if someone beat you to the punch. We were happy to find that no other toy company was called Inklings but we did come across an interesting group with the name.
The Inklings were a group at the University of Oxford in the 1930s and 40s who were literary enthusiasts who focused on fantasy writing. You may have heard of two of its most famous members, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis. What could be better!
Our company which is based on the idea of creativity and imagination shared a name with a group of writers who loved fantasy? It was perfect.
And that is the story of how Inklings became Inklings instead of Zorbies or some other weird, shortened, cutesy made up name that we would absolutely already be sick of hearing.