“What’s in a name?”

It’s one of the most famous lines ever penned by William Shakespeare (a guy who, it should be pointed out, became well known for many lines of prose) and appears in his play Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet speaks the line to express the idea that a person’s name is irrelevant, and their true qualities are what really matter.

But is that true in the business world?

Probably not, said Siva Narendra, CEO of the digital banking company known as Tyfone.

In fact, the Portland, Oregon-based fintech started out under a different moniker.

“We had lots of names,” Narendra said of the company that was founded in 2004. “We originally thought security should be the mantra behind it.”

So the pseudo-official first name of the company was Nkryptid, because the founders’ belief was that the convenience of digital systems was only possible if those systems were secure.

But the founders – Narendra, Tom Spitzer and Prabhakar Tadepalli – quickly found out that selling security is challenging.

“When it comes to banking, people assume it’s secure, so you can’t tell them you are selling them security,” he said. “That raises the concern that maybe it was not secure before.”

So Nkryptid served only as a placeholder-name for a short period while the founders pondered something more appropriate.

At the same time, the company had no physical office space yet.

“Our office was Starbucks and restaurants where we would sit down and chat,” Narendra said.

One night in early 2004, the group was having dinner at a Thai restaurant that they frequented regularly. The establishment was called Typhoon.

The men liked the place because of the good food, the comfortable ambiance and the stellar service.

“We were like ‘this is such a nice feeling,’” Narendra said. “And that’s what we wanted to create in the digital world.”

Later that night, Tadepalli called Narendra at home and suggested a new name – Tyfone.

And so while Typhoon is no longer in operation, its name (sort of) carries on with the digital banking company that found its own name in one of the restaurant’s locations.

But while the Tyfone name has now been a constant for more than 20 years, the company has continued to evolve and innovate. It may have taken the company a little while to find its “forever home,” but it has that now in digital banking and digital payments for community FIs.

“There is a lot that goes into a name,” said Tyfone’s EVP of Evangelism, Josh DeTar. “What we have come to symbolize is an unwavering commitment to collaboration, innovation and building relationships and features that bring meaningful benefit and value to the institutions we serve and the people they serve.”

As a side bar, Narendra, who worked for Intel from 1994 to 2004, said that the work attire at the tech giant was very casual.

“The joke used to be that if you see somebody wearing a suit at Intel it’s either an IBM employee or somebody coming in for an interview,” he said.

But when he started Tyfone he was often meeting with business executives, so he dressed more formally. And Narendra’s three-year-old daughter couldn’t help but notice the correlation between her dad’s dress and the times he was working.

“She said ‘I know why the company is called Tyfone. Because you’re now wearing a tie and you are always on the phone,’” he said.

Today, Narendra said he rarely wears a tie (and has instead found a liking for pocket squares) but never ventures into a client meeting without the company’s signature Red Chucks.