Five tips to finding the right name
Recently, several of our clients have asked us to create a name for their product or service. It’s a challenge that can be fun, fascinating, frustrating and fulfilling. Sometimes logical approaches work, sometimes it’s more art than science and sometimes you just have to wait for it to fly in out of nowhere and plow you over.
Of course, you can never know which way you’ll find your name at the start of the process. So, in order to simplify the process for you, we thought we’d provide a few things to remember when finding a name that works for your product or service.
1) It must be memorable: As one of our past creative directors used to say, “You can’t bore people into buying something.” And a name that people can’t remember won’t help sales. Good example: Amazon.com. Named after the world’s largest river, Amazon.com is easy to remember and implies that it is teeming with products. Another good example is Monster.com … which … uh … well, I’m not exactly certain what the concept is with that one.
In both cases, the name doesn’t explicitly say what services they offer. But they’re both more memorable than, say onlinebookseller.com or jobsearch.com. Relevance can be important, however, so try and maintain a balance when creating a memorable name.
2) It must be protectable: When we have a naming project for our clients, we always double-check with our attorneys to ensure that there aren’t any trademark conflicts with an existing name. The unfortunate reality is that a name doesn’t even have to be exactly the same as an existing name to warrant potential legal action. The attorney we rely on is thorough enough that if there is even a slight chance of conflict, he recommends not using the name.
The legal fees incurred in double-checking that a name is available to be trademarkable can add up quickly, however. Discuss with your attorneys the possibility of sending multiple names for review at the same time, and you might be able to get an “economy discount,” so to speak.
3) Try to anticipate unsavory connections: Try your best to look out for negative connotations of your name, or obvious similarities to unfortunate words. Not that it’s completely avoidable. If someone wants to make fun of your name, they’ll find a way to do it. Even Apple — who excels at keeping their names simple — is victim to the occasional mockery, as evidenced by “iTampon’s” appearance as one of the top trending topics on Twitter shortly after the release of the iPad.
4) Envision how it will work as a domain name: Sometimes when two words run together, there can be an unfortunate result. My favorite example is when I was doing online research for insurance, and found a company named Youngs Insurance. Perhaps they were afraid that YoungsInsurance.com was too long, and tried to shorten their Web address to youngsins.com. That particular Web address is no longer live, so apparently they’ve since changed it … for the better, I might add.
5) Patience is a virtue: We’ve named a lot of products, a lot of services and a lot of babies around this office. Believe us when we say we know how difficult it can be. My favorite anecdote is from when my parents were opening a coffee shop. In addition to the stress of finalizing menus and finding vendors for their food and coffee, they found themselves struggling to find the right name. Nothing quite captured those harrowing months like this humorous name suggestion from my dad: “Grounds for Divorce.”