How to create the perfect company or brand name
To me, naming is one of the most intrinsic and coolest thing in the branding process, whether you’re naming a company, a brand, a sub-brand, a product or a service, it really encapsulates your originality, uniqueness and your positioning. It has potential for awareness and credibility, all of the things that a brand really is and should be about.
Having a great name is not a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have
If you think of Warby Parker for example, they spent 18 months looking for a name before they even started building their website, and they were going to sell glasses online. But they took all of this time to find the perfect name that made them so unique, and it’s the smartest, coolest name to sell smart looking pairs of glasses. They stood out among thousands of competitors because people enjoy the product, but they also like to talk about the brand, and the word of mouth effect was great.
You can argue that successful companies have great names because they were able to invest early, because they have more funding, more resources. But I think taking the time to find the perfect name is a game changer, and that those successful companies are successful, partly because they have a great name.
We’ve set up a simple process when it comes to naming.
But first, let’s go over a few of the names that we’ve created.
Symbioderma is a company name. Ocean by Symbioderma is their first product line. In this example you can see it’s a mix of associations. Symbio, symbiosis, right? I also creates this really unique SEO-friendly name: Meaning that the company really owns the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) “Symbioderma” because of its uniqueness on Google.
The same applies with Protera. This is a protein engineering company, so obviously Protera for “protein”, but also “tera”, the association with nature, and “era”, the idea of a new age. They are one of the most disruptive companies Timelapse has worked with.
Objective Clinical, is inspirational yet very tangible and a very clear name. This company is leading executive consulting and staffing in clinical research and they wanted something concrete, solid, yet with an inspirational flavor and a strong vision transcribed in the name.
Altani360 is a process innovation company for healthcare organizations that creates 360 workshops. There is a tie here with the product that they offer. Altani is a mythical warrior, and aligns with the personality of the founder and the tone of voice of the brand.
SensePoint is a new gen survey web application.
Now, here are a few things about how to go about the naming process.
1. Ideation
You want to start with ideation and there are no limits to the number of people or stakeholders who can be involved in getting ideas.
Blue Moon, for example, came up with the name Blue Moon by opening a contest for all of their employees, and the secretary who came up with Blue Moon explained that the beer was only brewed once every blue moon. It just aligned perfectly with what they were trying to communicate and the brand personality that they were trying to pursue.
In the ideation phase, engaging multiple stakeholders is great, but the key is to give a timeframe. A week or two is good for most projects. If you don’t have a timeframe, you’ll receive late input and it will throw a wrench in the process. In the ideation process, you’ll likely reach three, four, five hundred ideas in just two weeks.
2. Filtering
Filtering comes next and this is typically the responsibility of the marketing team to make sure it aligns with the value proposition, the positioning of the company.
Filter out things that don’t match the vision, the mission of the company, or the personality traits of the brand. All of these are characteristics that you should have established before going into the naming process.
3. Translation
It’s the perfect time to do it in the process because you’re able to weed out a few names that might have awkward or inapropriate translations in several languages. This is often overlooked, but it could turn to be a costly issue later down the road.
4. Domain names
You want to find a .com or a .io if you are a tech or software company. There are some creative options too, as far as the main name extensions like .tech. .co is a good alternative too I think, but .com remain the gold standard.
5. Trademarks
Trademarks are often misunderstood: You can use the same name as a previously trademarked company or a brand if there is no potential confusion for consumers.
The rule here really put consumers first, so you could be called Warby Parker Garage as a garage somewhere in the United States since there is no potential confusion for your audience and customers.
You can search trademarks on the USPTO website, it’s available publicly and you can use TM in superscript as early as day one. TM really means are you intending to use this name or the set of words as a trademark for commercial purposes. It doesn’t mean you’ve started a process, it just means you intend to.
TM is free for grab for anything that you intend to use commercially as long as the trademark is available. And the R of registered trademark, only becomes usable once the trademark has been registered and filed.
6. Selection
You typically want to select the most unique and shortest option. In your decision, I think you also have to consider and trust context.
A lot of debate about naming goes into abstract naming versus concrete, tangible naming. I think going for an abstract name and using associations in order to communicate meaning is a great approach. First of all, it will enable you to have a more unique name, a more creative name, and a name that really aligns with what you’re trying to stand for.
Clarity is key but context will always be there. Your name will be seen as part of an email, as part of a campaign, as part of a recommendation from somewhere. It will be seen on Google, by someone searching for something specific. A name never shows up along, and it’s typically always associated with a tagline or a marketing message, most likely, a title, a content title. I encourage you to be creative and select names that are going to be more unique.
Timelapse is a strategic creative agency with offices in San Francisco, Denver, and NYC. See our work at teamtimelapse.com
