How To Contrive The Perfect Brand Name

Starting a business is like birthing a child. It’s hard. But what’s harder is turning it into a consistent and successful brand. Just like your child, the first thing you do with your business is give it a name, one that fits. Because once it’s done, it sticks.

If you’re trying to gain an insight into brand identity, you’ve come to the right place.

There are several elements that come together to form a successful branding strategy. Your brand’s name ranks pretty high on that list. It’s the one element that customers interact with the most, the one element that should bring all other elements together and represent what your brand stands for.

Think of your brand’s name as a centrepiece and your branding strategy as the tablescape. A good brand name will help tie your brand’s theme together while being at the centre of attention.

As consumers, we come across thousands of brand names. Some catchy, some thought-provoking, and others, simply strange.

It is important for your brand name to have a sense of uniqueness, as it plays a pivotal role in shaping your brand strategy and helps you differentiate yourself from others.

Names like Amazon, YouTube, and Nike have become permanent parts of our vocabulary because they’ve proven to be great brand names. But how do you come up with such good company names?

ATTRIBUTES OF A GOOD BRAND NAME

There are six attributes that you can take into consideration when looking at good company names for your brand.

New: With millions of brands existing, it’s hard to find domain names. Which leaves you with the Shakespearean benefit of coming up with one yourself. Creating a new word or blending a couple to come up with a new name can create a niche for your brand.

Suitable: Your brand should be a hint towards your business. Since most customers don’t spend over 15 seconds on a website, your brand name needs to be your primary seller.

Memorable: Naming your brand is a process you can get creative with. But a brand doesn’t have much value if no one can remember it. Short and simple names are easy to remember, even names with alliteration stay in the forefront of the consumers’ minds.

Easy to look up: Your brand name should be easy to ‘Google’. A simple and unique brand name is easy to look up and doesn’t clash with other existing names.

Consistent: Names, unlike other aspects of your business, should be able to stand the test of time. Trendy names might sound cool at the moment, but could become irrelevant as time passes.

Creative: There are several ways of coming up with a creative brand name. A brand name generator could be your inspiration. You can also mind map words you associate with your brand and look into different languages and symbolisms. But keep it simple!

This list will help create a criterion in your mind when coming up with names or when rejecting possible brand names.

The next step is looking at types of brand names. Different companies have different brand values and tones of voice, which is why the same approach may not work for everyone.

TYPES OF BRAND NAMES

Founder, geographical, and historic names: These are typically real-word, descriptive names. Founder names describe the people who started the company, geographic names describe a point of origin and historic names use prominent figures and speak to a historical attribute. Philips (derived from Frederik Philips), American Express, and Tesla are examples of these respective categories.

Descriptive names: These names describe the service that the company offers, making the name self-explanatory. A cliched example of this would be Xerox, the first company to manufacture photocopier machines.

Evocative names: These creative names use suggestion and metaphor to bring to mind brand experience. They often work as the starting point of the brand’s voice. Successful brands like Amazon and Apple are examples.

Lexical names: These brand names are often clever word plays that have a combination of compound words, spellings, intentional misspellings, and foreign words. The quirkiness of these names helps appeal to contemporary audiences. Burger King and Froot Loops are examples from the F&B industry.

Invented names: Brands with new products often go this route. These neologisms allow marketers to establish a new meaning in the minds of the customers. Kodak and Adidas are examples that show how this technique was successfully used.

Acronym names: These brand names use initialisms to abbreviate longer company names like IBM (which stands for International Business Machines) that may be hard to remember otherwise. A technique that’s been in use for a long time, these types of brand names can be hard to remember for customers.

Modern names: These new-age names are often compound words that may not directly give away the product or service. They often require heavy marketing for customers to have recall. For example, Netflix and Instagram.

Mixed brand names: These are names that use a fusion of one or more of the above categories. Telenor for example uses a combination of descriptive and geographic names — ‘Tele’, short for Telecom, and ‘Nor’ short for Norway (the origin).

But how does a word become a brand name? A concept known as Implicit Association Test talks about how learning words is more than memorizing meanings. With time, you cultivate positive and negative connotations about words that become solid in your mind. For instance, you will have two different feelings when you read the words ‘dog’ and ‘cockroach’.

In order to come up with a brand identity that checks the aforementioned boxes, here are some exercises you can try.

HOW TO COME UP WITH A BRAND NAME

Exploring different concepts around one word to expand your horizons beyond the spoken language.

However, to start with, determine your target audience. This will make it easier for you to market your products. Think of words that describe your brand, your target audience can relate to, and hint at qualities that your customers may look for.

Engage in brand workshops that will allow you to visualize and discuss the voice of your brand. These workshops can effectively help you create a branding strategy that best reflects your vision with the help of marketing experts.

Try free association, a linear thought pattern where you (preferably with another person) work based on what comes to mind when you think about the brand. Try comparing the brand identity to a person or an animal. With this technique, you can understand the feeling that your brand name invokes.

Create mind maps. These are charts you can use to present ideas and explore different concepts around one name. You start with your central idea and branch out. Different branches can explore different concepts like colors, symbolisms, historic references, feelings associated, etc.

After you land on a list of befitting words, you can try fitting them in the different types of brand names and create a unique name for your brand.

You’re not done yet. Take feedback to ensure that your name invokes the same feeling in others, too.

Oh, and don’t forget to check if your brand name is already registered. For this, look up the name that you’ve picked and if the first two pages of Google search results are clear, you should be good to go!

To complete the process, come up with a brand logo that compliments your brand name. Make sure the colors, shapes, and images used in the image align with your brand values.

P.S. While naming your brand, don’t think about where it stands now, think of where your brand will be 10 years from today. THINK BIG!