How to name a brand: a method, the tests, and the traps

A good name is not the one that sounds best on the day you choose it. It is the one that survives five years of daily use: spelled out over the phone, mistyped by customers, printed on an invoice, read by an algorithm, filed at a registry.

The types of name, and what each costs

The process, in five steps

1. Start from strategy, not a dictionary

Write down what the name has to communicate first. If your positioning is “precision and speed”, the name has to sound short and sharp, not long and warm. That criterion alone eliminates half the candidates you would otherwise generate.

2. Generate by category, not at random

Ten names for each of the five types above, plus ten from mechanical methods: compounds, Latin or old roots, truncations, reversed sounds, terms borrowed from another field. Fifty to sixty candidates is the volume at which the good ones start appearing.

Do not filter while generating. They are two different mental activities and mixing them produces short, bland lists.

3. Run the tests

Each test eliminates names. Run them in this order; the early ones are the cheapest:

1. 01The phone test. Say it to somebody who has never heard it and ask them to write it down. If they get it wrong, you pay that cost on every order, invoice and referral.
2. 02The radio test. Say “hello, you've reached [name]”. If it sounds ridiculous or unclear, it will do so daily.
3. 03The search test. Search it. If the first ten results are something strong and unrelated, you will compete for years for your own name.
4. 04The length test. Beyond three syllables, people shorten it themselves. Better to shorten it yourself and control the result.
5. 05The spelling test. If there is more than one plausible spelling, you will lose traffic to the other one permanently.
6. 06The other-language test. Check what it means in the major languages of any market you might enter. It takes five minutes and has saved many brands.

4. Check availability, all four

A name is available only if it is available everywhere. Order matters, because the first check is free and eliminates the most:

• The domain. Your primary market's TLD first. If it is held by an active company in your field, stop; if it is parked, you have a negotiation, not a certainty.
• The company registry. Registering a company name is a separate matter from trademarks, and being allowed to register a company does not mean you are allowed to trade under the name.
• The trademark register. Search the register for your territory and for the classes you will trade in. Free, public, and the check that most often changes the outcome.
• Social handles. Check the username on every platform you use. The same handle everywhere is a real advantage.

5. Test on people, correctly

Do not ask “do you like it?”. Aesthetic preference predicts nothing. Ask: “what do you think this company sells?”, “who is it for?”, “please write it down”. Those answers tell you whether the name communicates what it must, which is the only thing that matters.

Common traps

• Names containing a year or a city. They date or geographically limit you at exactly the moment you grow.
• Filler suffixes. -Tech, -Soft, -Pro, -Prime, -Labs. The clearest signal that a name was assembled rather than chosen.
• Creative misspelling. Swapping a letter to free up the domain solves one problem and creates a permanent one at every spelling.
• Over-specific names. “Sunday Coffee” is charming until you open on Tuesdays.
• Falling in love with one candidate. Keep three alive until the legal checks are finished. One of them almost always dies.

After you have the name

Register the domain and the handles the same day, even if you will not use them yet. Then start the visual work: the name already decides a lot about the mark, a long name calls for a compact symbol, a short one supports a pure wordmark. See how to design a logo and the visual identity guide.

If you already have the name and want to see it translated into an identity quickly (mark, palette, typography), RHAM starts from a written brief and generates the whole system, so you can compare directions before committing to one.