Latino naming practices of small-town businesses in rural southern Florida

This article examines naming practices of Latino grocery stores and restaurants in an eighteen-county area of southern Florida. Business names denote cultural affinity and personal whims, and, like other forms of Latino cultural expression, they are drawn from the cultural roots of owners and clientele to connote the flavor and pride of Latino identity. Unlike other art or literary forms, however, business names reflect a commercial accommodation to the techniques and strategies of marketing more than a defiance of mainstream culture or the statement of cultural resistance to Anglo society. Their choices are strongly influenced by places and experiences that reflect Latino culture outside the local area rather than locales of current residence within rural southern Florida.