Naming a collection or a business
Updated
Smaller than the equivalent decision in a maker craft, and it carries one thing the others do not.
Two different things
A collection name, which goes on labels and becomes provenance.
A business name, which goes on invoices.
They are frequently the same and they do different work.
Naming a collection
This is the one that lasts. Specimens from a named collection carry that name for as long as they exist, and a collection with a reputation adds value to everything that passes through it.
Collectors often use their own name, which is the convention and works, because provenance is about a person's judgment.
Put it on every label, with your catalog number. That is what makes the provenance travel when a specimen is sold on, and it costs nothing at the printing stage.
Naming a business
The ordinary considerations, plus one specific to this trade: do not name it after a locality you do not control.
A business named for a famous mine implies an association with material from it, and that is a claim about provenance rather than about branding.
Avoid species names that are also trade names, which come with the baggage of whatever the trade name was invented to sell.
What to check
The trademark register, the domain, and the handmade and auction marketplaces where a name may be in use without ever being registered.
And search the name against the mineral literature, because a surprising number of appealing names already belong to a species, a locality or a well-known dealer.