As far as I know there is not very much solid evidence either way. There is one interesting study from the 1980s on how changing the name of already established

As far as I know there is not very much solid evidence either way. There is one interesting study from the 1980s on how changing the name of already established large firms affected their stock performance. It seems to have had a moderately positive effect, especially for industrial firms, and especially for those that were doing poorly previously: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/183841 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/183841 (paywalled, but you can read the summary of findings on the first page) The authors tentatively conclude, however, that the actual name (old or new) doesn't seem to really matter, and instead what's happening is that a major rebranding effort is seen by stockholders as credible evidence that the company is serious about overhauling the business in other, non-name-related ways as well.