Odd vs. Strange

How we named our start-up

Dasani, Blackberry, Febreze, Pentium, Azure, Powerbook (Macbook), Deskjet and Swiffer. These are all names created by one of the leading naming companies in the world, Lexicon Branding.

Naming today is a greater challenge than ever. With 19.5 million trademarks and 230m domain names registered, even coming up with a word is a challenge, let alone a name which gets attention, generates interest and tells a new story.

A new brand name should:

• Work across multiple media platforms and across the internet
• Be easy to search — yet distinctive within the context of blogs, YouTube and Twitter environment
• Able to be registered in key countries
• Be able to travel around the world (even small companies are becoming global).

Professional naming companies can charge up to $100,000 for the creation of a brand name. To justify this, they use various ‘tools’. We’re going to show how we played with these to come up with our company name. Gamevy

Linguistics

A global team of 77 in country- Ph.D linguists evaluate cultural meaning. They look at sound and spelling patterns and the wealth of reactions and associations to those words.

Sound symbolism

Which one of the two nonsense words — taketa and naluma do you think goes with each of these pictures? Of course, neither of these names are available.

If you’re like virtually everyone else, you’ll pair taketa with the angular illustration and naluma with the curved one.

That’s because all the consonants in taketa are what linguists call “obstruents”, and all the consonants in taluma are “sonorants”. You can reinforce the effect of sonorants with a curvy font, or obstruents with a straight font.

Name selection

Does the name gain attention, generate interest and deliver a new message. Is a name multifaceted, can it deliver new energy to the category? Does the name look and sound natural or artificial? Does it offer a pleasing, rhythmic quality? Is it constructed to create a balance between vowels and consonants? Is it likely to be memorable because of its stress patterns? Does it help to convey the right tone?

Linguistic profile

The words odd and strange are similar enough in meaning for dictionaries to use one in defining the other, yet strange often includes a connotation of “threatening” or “scary” that is mostly lacking in odd.

In a brand name, literal meaning is just a tiny part of what is communicated. Even if two brands have identical literal meanings, phonetic and other difference would change their message. A few examples.

Keva vs. Kerva: Open syllable “ke” is shorter, simpler than closed syllable “ker”

Preff vs. Prezz: Prezz is more alive; Preff takes less time to say, conveys a leaner kind of energy

Priance vs. Briance: Priance brings to mind “Primary”; Briance brings to mind “bright, brilliance”

DIY!

As a start-up, we were not prepared to pay more than a few dollars for a name. We ignored domain name pirates and websites that pretend to be helping you find a name. We did the work ourselves, convinced that our own creativity and expertise would be just fine. Then to help secure our work, we looked for companies like trademarkdirect.co.uk prepared to provide a professional low cost service.

So how did we do?

In the end, ‘Gamevy’ was chosen as our company name.

We knew we would be making games. We thought competition would be important (which gave us ‘to vie’). We also wanted something lively but not off-putting. We went through a few hours of brainstorming with all three founders before narrowing the name down to just a few. Then we tested these with various people — friends and total strangers. We wanted to know what associations it created and how people pronounced it. We also — of course — checked out trademarks and other legal guff.

We believe it has balanced vowels (allowing for a soft y) and consonants. It has fewer than six characters (making twitter etc easier). It can be pronounced. It can be spelt. It has multiple meanings and associations, which we believe support our concept and brand. And crucially, it was available at low cost.

So there you go — how to name a start-up. Follow Gamevy or check out more of our articles on what it means to be a radical business.