THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 22, 1995 TAG: 9505200225
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ted Evanoff
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
All the talk about the name Hampton Roads, whether it adequately identifies this cluster of cities and historic sites to the rest of the world, has been going on in official circles for years.
So it seemed fitting to sound out some business owners who use geographical reference points such as Hampton Roads in their company names.
This was no Gallup Poll. But our survey concluded that for people running small businesses, this one's a yawner.
No one else was around to take the call when the phone rang near the desk of Stephen Halley, the vice president of Hampton Roads Repackaging & Warehousing. Halley picked up the phone and identified his company in two succinct words: ``Hampton Roads.''
``Normally, it's just the customer who calls here,'' said Halley, whose Chesapeake business blends chemicals and commodities for sale on four continents. ``We usually answer the phone by saying `Hampton Roads Repackaging.' Sometimes I just shorten it to Hampton Roads.''
Use of the short version, he insists, never has led some puzzled caller to ask, `What?'
``Hampton Roads is fine with me,'' Halley said.``I've been here all my life. I've heard talk they want to incorporate all the cities into one city. I think that would be too much to ask. All the cities are different.''
Recently he began advertising in Chemical Week, a national trade journal. Folks responding to the ad never have asked Halley which highways make up Hampton Roads. Which is just as well.
Edward T. Robertson would tell you the origin of the name has to do with water. Robertson, president of Hampton Roads Commercial Cleaning and Contracting, has his office in Norfolk and often drives the tunnel to Hampton and Newport News on the Peninsula.
``I chose the name because I know where Hampton Roads is,'' Robertson said. ``Most people don't. It's right where the tunnel is.''
True. Vessels headed away from the ocean pass over the tunnel and between Point Comfort and Willoughby Spit (spit, incidentally, is an ancient word in the same pointed family as spoke and spike) to enter Hampton Roads, an expanse of water originally called Southampton Roads. It is one of the older English place names in America.
In case you've wondered, roadstead is an old nautical term that describes sheltered waters where ships drop anchor. Southampton refers to Henry Wriothesly, a settler who happened to be the Third Earl of Southampton. In 1610, the Jamestown settlers named an important creek Southampton after the nobleman. The nearby anchorage was named for the creek and in time was shortened to Hampton Roads.
It wasn't history that Robertson had in mind in 1985 when he opened Hampton Roads Commercial Cleaning. It was geography. He picked a name that tells prospective clients how far he'll range for business, which is why Hampton Roads has become a convenient label. It compresses the Peninsula and the southside into one place.
Geography was also foremost in the mind of Donald Soles. When he opened Tidewater Floors in Chesapeake in the late '80s, he did business only on the southside. Tidewater had a logical ring.
Coming from Richmond he associated Tidewater with the southside, something separate and distinct from the Peninsula. ``Looking at it today it would probably make as much sense to call it Hampton Roads Floors,'' said Soles. That's because he branched out to the Oyster Point section of Newport News.
While the name Hampton Roads now provides a handy label for the entire region, Soles continues to regard the cities on either side of the anchorage as commercially separate. ``You can look at it as one market, but you're really kidding yourself,'' he said.
If the people here know where Hampton Roads is, it's a local knowledge of limited use on the travels of Gerald M. Bazar, president of World Wide Sales in Virginia Beach.
``Most of my business is with the government. I travel around the world. The name Hampton Roads never comes up,'' Bazar said. ``Sometimes they'll (clients) ask if they can fly into Virginia Beach. They can't find it (on the airline schedule). They can find Norfolk. I tell them the cities are side by side.
``I know very few people who ever call it Hampton Roads or Tidewater, other than the people in the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.'' Bazar said. ``In my office they talk about their individual cities. Even little areas like Pungo. They don't say they live in the Hampton Roads area. They say they live in Pungo.'' by CNB