How To Choose A Company Name
Whether people see it on your website, on your badge at a trade show, or your business card, your company name makes a vital first impression.
I wrote this article to show you how to come up with awesome company name and have fun doing it.
Creating names is not a science, yet naming firms spout ridiculous jargon about it:
“Verbal identity screening”, “rigorous methodologies”, or “computational linguistics”.
Others try to invent names using math.
But customers don’t fall in love with brand names created by scientific processes, linguistic voodoo, or mangling the alphabet.
Those kind of names don’t resonate with us, because they don’t make emotional connections.
The most powerful business names connect with people because they are based on familiar words.
In this article, I will show you simple techniques that will turn heads, generate buss, and spark sales.
Before we jump into brainstorming name ideas, you’ll learn how to objectively evaluate names using the SMILE & SCRATCH test.
This is basically a checklist based on philosophy that a name should make you SMILE instead of SCRATCH your head.
The 5 Qualities of A Good Name (SMILE):
- Suggestive — evokes something about your brand
- Meaningful — resonates with your audience
- Imagery — is visually evocative to aid in memory
- Legs — lends itself to a theme for extended mileage
- Emotional — moves people
The 7 Common Naming Mistakes (SCRATCH):
- Spelling challenged — look like a typo
- Copycat — is similar to competitors’ names
- Restrictive — limits future growth
- Annoying — is forced to frustrates customers
- Tame — is flat, descriptive, uninspired
- Curse of Knowledge — makes sense only to insiders
- Hard to pronounce — is not obvious or is unapproachable
This filter is kind of a no-brainer, right?
You can use this filter to evaluate you company name ideas.
Yet you’d be surprised how many names fail this test.
So let’s get right into it.
The 5 Qualities of A Good Name
We enjoy names that surprise us, entertain us, and make us feel smart because we get them.
Names that makes as smile are infectious.
They’re the ones we talk about, tweet, and repeat because we like other people to smile, too.
Imagine if before people were even customers of your, they loved your company simply because they loved the name.
That’s the power of a names that makes people smile and that’s the acronym behind the 5 qualities of an effective name.
So let’s talk about each of those qualities in more detail.
1. Suggestive
A name can’t be expected to say everything, but it should suggest something about your brand.
Not in a descriptive way, but in a metaphorical way, such as Amazon.
The name Amazon suggest enormous.
Jeff Bezos chose this name because it conjured up images of the world’s largest river.
And he envisioned his company being unfathomably large.
While Amazon.com started as an online bookseller in 1994, the company expanded rapidly into other ares.
Now, no matter what they do or sell in the future, the name Amazon will always fit.
A suggestive name can be inspired by your brand’s personality.
Simply jot down a few adjectives that describe the personality of your brand (as if it was a person).
Then you can use those words to spark your name ideas in the brainstorming phase.
Other suggestive names include: Kickstarter, FitBit, Tropicana.
2. Meaningful
It’s important to make sure your name is meaningful to potential customers, not just you.
This is because most of the time when people encounter your name, you won’t be there to explain it to them.
The name Yelp means “cry for help”.
It’s better to have a meaningful name that people can remember, than a meaningless name that they can type in five keystrokes.
Do NOT name your company after yourself.
While it may evoke warm thoughts to your friends and family, your personal name is meaningless to your potential customers.
Your name evokes absolutely nothing about your business, expertise, or brand personality.
And if you’re like me (Arek Dvornechuck), your name is hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and hard for people to remember.
Consider also what would happen if you decide to sell your company in the future and your name is attached to it.
Other meaningful names: Kryptonite (bike locks), Breakthrough (mental health), Repel (insect repellent).
3. Imagery
Names that can bring pictures to your mind can be easily remembered.
Wouldn’t you love to have a company name that would be so embedded in people’s memories that they could recall it years later?
Timberland name evokes images of hiking in a mossy evergreen forest.
That’s the power of a visually evocative name — it brings vivid pictures to aid in memory.
No matter of what your product or service is, there’s no excuse to not have a company name with imagery.
People will remember your name instantly because it has such strong associations with things that they can picture in their mind.
So name your company something that conjures up images — give them something to latch on to.
When people can visualize your name with a picture, it’s much easier for them to remember than some unfamiliar word or acronym.
More examples of names with imagery: Range Rover (SUVs), Target (mass merchandiser), Irish Spring (soap).
[Click here to continue reading this article on my blog…]
Clap if you like it 👏
This article was written based on the book “Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick” by Alexandra Watkins.
