I originally wanted to call this the Let My People Go Foundation because the story of Moses being called to free the Israelites is such a powerful story that gave me much inspiration and motivation after I first read Jake and Vivian’s story. I even purchased the domain LetMyPeopleGo(.org) , which I was shocked I could even obtain. I viewed this purely from the standpoint that we are all God’s people (regardless of race or religious beliefs). But as we were discussing the topic with our legal team, our attorney advised that in the entertainment space, this might not go over very well, having a white guy (me) using this phrase since it has already been used extensively by groups of different races, particularly by African Americans. I felt like that was good advice, but I was disappointed…I felt like this took the wind out of my sails since I was riding a multi-month high on this concept that the foundation would be established to help oppressed people so that they could worship God. [This is still a strong theme of course, but the current foundation name speaks more to the value of individual souls.]

We then went back to the drawing board, and for what seemed like forever, I had long lists of names I was combing through. The marketing team was involved heavily, but so was everyone else I could talk to about it. Jared and I were going back and forth when we were down to just a few names, all with great power behind them. But we kept running into roadblocks, mainly from a trademark protection, or first-use standpoint. I can’t believe how exponentially more difficult it is to come up with a good name than it was 20 years ago!  When I had decided on the word KNOWN, I was trying so hard to keep it to one or two words. But I kept bumping into wall after wall when the Known By Name phrase suddenly came to my head, and I felt something. I was in a meeting with Jared when I told him, “I think this is the name God wants us to use.” I immediately sent an email to our legal team to search, and after a few days, it came back with a green light.

We also decided to pursue the second name of Known Films for federal protection, but it wasn’t as clear of a path since there were already some closely registered marks. I learned that we could use that name as our domain name without the likelihood of running into problems with any other trademarks. Thus, the knownfilms.org domain is in use for the Known By Name Foundation.