It's super hard to make a judgement call without knowing the name - keep in mind one of the options here is that you are overreacting. Changing a name can be really, really bad if you don't do it right. But here's a couple of things you should do:
- Approach this as a UX problem. Is the name negatively affecting people's ability to approach or remember the brand? Do people actually need to know the exact spelling of your company name in order to discover your product?
- Check with existing customers to see how they pronounce the name. Or if they have trouble with it. You may find customers already have their own fun or cute ways to say it, and you can formalize these alternate pronunciations. It can be a great nod to the community.
- Can you simplify the name but keep most of it? Kind of like Dunking Donuts going to DNKN.
- Others have the excellent idea where you add to the name and slowly turn it into an acronym. Very few people care that UTM actually stands for Urchin Tracking Module. But it gave a nice shoulder period for forums and naming to not be too confusing.
If you do go the route of a complete rename - yeah, it's better to rip off the bandaid at once and be done with it. But you had better follow some best practices:
- Plan on a HUGE marketing spend afterwards to break in the new name.
- Don't just pick something random and trendy out of the grabbag of available domain names. "HxHxHx is now Grokly!"
- Spend good money on an SEO expert so you don't royally screw up your web presence.