GREENFIELD — What’s in a name? Many Franklin County business owners have original, unusual names for their businesses. But asking if they think the names have helped or hurt is like asking a protective parent if they think they harmed a child by naming him or her “Sunflower.”

Take “A Bottle of Bread,” which was a very popular Shelburne Falls restaurant near the Bridge of Flowers. When it opened, the owners said the phrase was from a Bob Dylan song, “Yea Heavy and a Bottle of Bread,” and from a French baker, who referred to his style of bread as “solid beer.” The name was intended to suggest pub fare, which is what the restaurant started with.

Though people wondered what the name meant, it apparently didn’t stop anyone from coming. And the waterfront pub’s local patrons even found a nickname for the place: “BOB’s,” (Bottle of Bread), as in, “I’ll meet you at Bob’s.”

“Tofu A Go-Go,” which was on Main Street, offered much more vegetarian food than just tofu. But when asked if she thought the name hurt her business, owner Star Chicaderis explained that the name “goes back a long way and has had a tremendous reputation.”

When Chicaderis took over a vegetarian restaurant in Provincetown on Cape Cod in 1998, she changed the name to something that would signify vegetarian offerings, she said. One day she sketched two dancing chefs, which gave her the idea for the name “Tofu A Go-Go!” Next to the name was the explanation: “Vegetarian, Vegan, Macrobiotic.”

Chicaderis bought a house in Greenfield and ran her vegan restaurant on Main Street from 2007 to 2009. She still has a home in Greenfield, she said, but she’s back in Provincetown, operating a take-out lunch business, called “To Go-Go,” at the Bradford Natural Foods market, while she writes a cookbook. “I still own the name, and it’s going to be on the cookbook,” she said.

Zemi, in Greenfield, is a shop that offers gift items, clothing, jewelry, self-help books and meditation supplies. Before it opened, store owner Maija Meijers says she thought long about the store name and even prayed for an answer for naming the new shop.

“Later that night, in a dream, I heard the word Zemi,” she said. Meijers said she looked it up in a large unabridged dictionary, and found that a zemi was “an object filled with spirit,” and that the word came from a tribal language.

“That name seemed totally appropriate for the shop,” said Meijers. She says that over the years, some customers have asked what the name stood for. “As far as doing the business good or bad, who knows? From our small human perspective, how can we really tell what is helping or hindering?”

The name “Wandering Moon” occurred to store owners Laura and David Roberson in the days when they traveled a lot, selling crafts and goods at Renaissance fairs and reenactments. Their 17-year-old Shelburne Falls store sells handcrafted goods, jewelry and books.

“We came up with that originally when we were traveling merchants,” explained Laura Roberson. “We traveled on the road a lot and we would watch the moon, because we were on the road so much.” They named their Shelburne Falls gift shop Wandering Moon, and have heard compliments on the name from customers, she said.

Later, customers pointed out that Shakespeare used the phrase “swifter than the wandering moon” in “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.” “So there’s a literary tie, also,” she said.

“Most people name their business after something they really like,” says Lyne Kendall, senior financial adviser of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center. The development center is based in Amherst but offers local business consultation through the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and other chambers.

“Let’s say, I really like “Amethyst” and I run a party store, so I’m going to name my business Amethyst,” says Kendall. “What does that name say about my business?”

One common mistake, she said, is to name a business using one’s initials. “Only one in a million businesses can be named IBM,” she said. “If I call my business ‘LJK and Associates’, will people know what I do? You want to draw people to you.” Kendall said one way to tell if a business name is working is to find out if people remember it.

She said “cutesy names” don’t usually work, but there are exceptions. For instance, in Boston, a company called “Deathwish Piano Movers” has done well for 40 years. Another name Kendall likes is a computer technical service in Hadley, called “the Nerd Herd.” She says the name is cute, but it also alludes to computer technology.

A long time ago, an ice cream shop in Bernardston was named “Calories.” When asked, was that a good name or a bad name, Kendall laughed.

“I love that name,” she said. “That, to me, is one in a million. I think it is a clever name.”

But she also wondered if it would be as effective in today’s diet-conscious era.

“What you name your business creates an identity for it,” she says, for better or for worse.