The Power of Names and the Stories Behind Them

“Hello, my name is ________________”

When you meet someone, it’s usually the first thing you say, right?

If asked, “Where are you going to dinner?” You wouldn’t answer with its location, would you? You’d answer with its name.

We all know names are important, but do you ever think about how those names got important in the first place?

Names get their power from the stories we associate with them.

Like Miller Park.

Home to the Milwaukee Brewers, the only fan-shaped convertible roof in North America, the Arctic Tailgate, a million memories, and thousands of fans that have referred to it as Miller Park for nearly a generation.

Yet, come the 2021 season, the direct correlation between Milwaukee BREWERS and Miller BREWING will be no more. It will be replaced with whatever may come from the new naming rights holder – American Family Insurance. (The branding guys really have their work cut out for them on this one.)

But don’t distress, as in with all good Wisconsin sports dramas, there has been a petition started by outraged fans not wanting the park to take on a new name. Surely that will be as successful as the 2008 Favre vs. Rodgers petitions.

But there are other strong, unlikely-to-change business names.

Like Penny Mustard.

When Ben and Arvid Huth created the name for their then up and coming furniture business, they wanted something that represented them, their family, their upbringing and had a story behind it.

And that it does.

Like many in the midwest, the Huth brothers grew up in a farming family where everyone was expected to pitch in with the chores the land demanded.

One said chore was riding the terrain of weeds. In lieu of today’s weed killers, Mom and Dad Huth enlisted their sons. The boys would pull invasive weeds from the fields by hand – with a bit of reward.

Arvid explained that “Our parents paid us a penny a plant to pick wild mustard plants out of the hayfields, cornfields, and oatfields.”

Our company’s name wasn’t the only thing born out of those fields.

While working the land – pulling weeds or otherwise – Arvid and Ben both developed a sense of pride in what the land revealed and the work that went into it. Since time was such a precious resource to the Huth family, they held sacred the values of doing things thoughtfully and thoroughly the first time.

These are the same values you’ll find deeply rooted in every facet of Penny Mustard Furnishings today.

The Huth brothers grew up learning, as Arvid says, “it’s not about doing a job. It’s not about getting paid. It’s about accomplishing something.”

Chief among those accomplishments has been associating the Penny Mustard name with raising industry standards of dedication, quality, innovation, and pricing.

Stop in and see for yourself what the Penny Mustard name means to us and tens of thousands of customers.

Oh, and while you’re here, maybe you can help us brainstorm some ideas to send over to the American Family Insurance guys.