What’s in a Name?: Curious Iguana

In this installment of BTW’s What’s in a Name? series, Marlene England, who owns Curious Iguana in Frederick, Maryland, with her husband, Tom, explains how they chose the store’s name.

“My husband and I own another store in downtown Frederick called Dancing Bear Toys and Gifts,” England said, “so when we were opening the bookstore in 2013 we wanted a name that was kind of like Dancing Bear.”

“‘Curious’ is a wonderful word to describe the community we live in. It’s a very progressive and curious community of readers,” she said. “And then it became a matter of finding a unique animal to go along with the word ‘curious.’”

England said she and Tom attempted to come up with an original name that had not been used before, since they intended to trademark it.

“We checked all the website domain names, and we were covered, although there is a man in the U.K. with the Twitter handle @curiousiguana [the store’s handle is @IguanaBooks], so he sometimes receives Tweets meant for the store,” she said.

One of several benefits to having such a unique name is that it prompts people’s curiosity when they see it pop up on their phone screens.

“When we call folks from the store and Curious Iguana shows up on their Caller ID, people tend to pick up to see why ‘Curious Iguana’ is calling them,” said England, with a laugh.

Adding yet another dimension, the actual design of the store logo also reflects the bookstore’s name. “The shape of the iguana’s tail in the logo forms a question mark,” England said.