If you were on The Apprentice, what would you suggest as a team name? Are there any names that you have ever considered, and have they ever actually been suggested on the show?

I would want to name a team Mercury. In addition to being a chemical element and the closest planet to the sun (and just being a cool sounding word), Mercury is the Roman God of financial gain. I think it would be a lot better than some of the team names they've gone for over the years. It was used on my suggestion on the first online Apprentice game I took part in, and it was suggested on the show once, by Nargis in Series 2, but it wasn't used.

Has anyone else had any thoughts about this?

Here's a list of previous team names from a thread last year

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1831517

Mercury is not a bad name really - Have no idea what I would suggest, maybe animal based like Panther or Chameleon so Lord Sugar could make lots of puns.

or even Big Dawg

There might be a problem with any name that resembles a real business name - such as Mercury, for example. It would funny if they phone up someone and say "We're calling from Mercury" and the bloke at the other end gives them five minutes of invective about his awful experience with the phone co. of that ilk.

{for younger readers. Mercury really was a phone business, offering an alternative to BT in the 1980s. It was owned by Cable & Wireless. Its mobile phone business became T-Mobile, now part of EE}

Hmm, fair point. They had issues with 'Cirtus' in Series 3, as it turned out to be a real company that Tre had worked with. However, that's such an old company I'm not sure it would count. Plus, they usually add another thing onto the end of the team name to make it relevant to the task - Mercury Catering Services etc.

Achievatron

LOVE IT!

The marakesh chicken company would be my idea

Bloody shambles

Team Donald Trump

Innovate
Industria

Stella.

Sugar Lords.

Sugarbabes

Fabulous

Team Team

Winning Women.

Team Discovery Channel. or
**** Ar$e Industries
We Haven't A Bloomin Clue

Shabba-dabba-dippedy-doppedy-dingly-dongly-hubba-hubba-ooh-thuribble-rabble-pappa-clapper-hibbedy-habbedy-wabbedy-wobbedy-BOOM!

Watch any episode and any time any team name is mentioned, just imagine that Nick, Karren or Lord Sugar is saying that instead of whatever the actual team name is. It'd be TV gold.

We'd see even less of the task highlights than we currently do, because so much of the programme slot would go into clips of the name being said!

I could be possibly wrong here, but it's entirely possible that the trademark or some form of IP protection relating to Mercury is still in force and being actively maintained. You can't just whack something on the end to make a name legit. That would be like me doing Disney Catering Services and not expecting the real Disney to shut me down. The whole IP thing is a minefield when it comes to branding and even extends to colours, fonts, and likenesses.

I'd probably call my team Amstrad. I don't think that's been done before.

That must be the case with a lot of names though - there are so many companies that I imagine a lot of the names that they suggest must have been names of actual companies at some point, and yet the only one we have ever seen to cause problems on that front was Cirtus. Surely if they were that uncomfortable about the names of real companies being used, there'd have been a lot more times it had come up?

The Brady Bunch

Sugar Balls

"Mercury" is far to generic a name to have an issue with IP laws. It's not like the teams have to make logos which could infringe on someone's trademark. If you google it, you'll find there are plenty of companies using the name (I very quickly found a company of lawyers, one that makes machine parts, one that makes chemicals, and the telecommunications company already mentioned).

Fat Daddies