Naming your brand: 3 sources of inspiration to play with (and 1 to get out of the way early)
A professional namer will typically generate hundreds or even thousands of ideas in response to a naming brief. That list will be whittled down to the tens before their client decides on The One.
In other words, when it comes to landing on the perfect name for your brand, your starting point should be quantity over quality. And that quantity is higher than most business owners imagine.
So if you’ve emerged from a naming brainstorm with your team with ten ideas that seem okay, you’ve probably not done enough to explore the options available to you.
But how do you go about generating the huge pile of ideas in which your perfect brand name will be buried?
The name that sets your brand apart from your competitors is more likely to be found down a rabbit hole than in a meeting room with a whiteboard.
To find the real naming gold, a brain needs time and permission to wander. Here are some places we let ours loose.
Rule out first: Chat GPT
Your first port of call will probably be ChatGPT or some other AI naming tool. That’s fine. Give it a try. Get it out of your system so you can feel confident you’ve left no stone unturned.
What you’ll discover, though, is that, while generative AI might be great for writing a day-to-day email, its suggestions for brand names will leave you disappointed.
Everything AI produces is based on writing that’s already out there. So it will tend to make suggestions that are conventional, cliched and close to your competitors’ names.
AI can’t (yet, at least) make the kinds of creative leaps from which some of the best names are born
For example, an AI bot would never have come up with names like:
Bluetooth (named after a Viking king who united many tribes)
Amazon (a metaphor for scale and abundance)
Virgin (conveying freshness and innovation)
Nor can AI weave a compelling story around how it got to such name – as we always do when presenting a name back to a client.
AI also lacks that ineffable human quality: taste.
Just to prove a point, we asked ChatGPT to “suggest names for a company that builds and protects reputations”. Here’s what it recommended:
RepuGuard
IntegriShield
BrandSecure
ReputationForge
CredenceWorks
ClearVanguard
HonorGuard Solutions
PrestigeLine
TrustFortify
ImageArmour
Yes, ChatGP will explain each of these choices, and will do so with all the guileless enthusiasm of a small child showing you what they did at kindergarten that day.
But, unlike your sensitive human ears, ChatGPT can’t hear just how bad these sound.
Further prompting might produce suggestions less obviously terrible than these, but you’ll probably find that AI will only take you so far.
Here’s where to look next.
Beyond Roget’s #1: OneLook
When looking for a new name, a thesaurus is an obvious port of call — as it helps you find synonyms for themes associated with your brand (e.g. speed, strength or creativity).
But if the word thesaurus makes you think of Roget, then think again. Today’s namers have access to much more powerful tools.
One such tool is OneLook, which scans 18,955,870 entries in 1061 dictionaries and which lives up to its tagline:
There’s no word too weird for OneLook.
OneLook doesn’t just provide definitions or suggest synonyms for a particular word. It also has a subject index that is very easy to get lost in (the ideal state of mind for a namer).
For example, the overall topic Change features sub-lists ranging from Anchoring to Missionary work to Urbanization, each with tens of words listed.
Under Physical processes, you’ll find long lists of words under headings that embrace topics as diverse as Acidity, Protruding belly and Tincturing.
The lists under Music cover everything from Ancient Greek poetry to Morris dancing to Picking techniques.
In other words, OneLook invites you down paths where that naming gold is found.
Another powerful feature of OneLook is that it can help you find words and phrases that begin, end with, or contain a particular word.
You can also use it to search for various letter combinations and patterns — great if you’re open to neologisms for your name.
Beyond Roget’s #2: Wordnik
Wordnik claims to be the world's biggest online English dictionary, by number of words. It draws on a wide range of dictionaries to provide different angles on any word. It also shows you real-life examples of the word in use, from a many different online sources.
And where your good old Roget’s only lists synonyms, Wordnik, also provides you with:
hypernyms — words that are more generic or abstract than the search term
hyponyms — words that are more specific than the search term
words found in the same context as the search term
words that rhyme with the search term
a reverse dictionary where you’ll find list of words that include your original word in their definition
All of these allow you to explore the concepts related to your brand in a way that will take you beyond the obvious.
Finally, Wordnik has a visuals section that presents you with images from Flickr that users have tagged with your word.
On the surface, many of these images might seem irrelevant. But for a word person, visuals can set the brain in an unexpected direction. They’re a great source of metaphors for the idea you’re exploring.
Naming rocket fuel: Anywhere but your desk
As every copywriter will tell you, the best technique for solving a word problem is to step away from your desk.
We all have tales of how an idea came to us in the shower or after sleeping on a problem. Or how a walk led to a breakthrough after a morning of frustration.
There’s something about switching off the brain allows it to do its work.
But you can also take yourself off to unexpected places in a deliberate search for ideas.
For example, the namer for an addiction charity was sent to hardware store in search of inspiration for ideas on the theme of strength. There, they spotted some glass for sale which gave them a brilliant idea for the charity’s name: Shatterproof.
So instead of brainstorming naming ideas, try brainstorming places you could send your team members to in search of inspiration.
Get each person to wander around in their designated place with a notebook and an open mind — and then report back.
And don’t be afraid to send them into unlikely territory. Naming a spa? How about taking that notebook to a nightclub? High-tech app? How about that exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts you’ve been meaning to check out anyway?
All so much more fun than assembling Post-it notes of words in a stuffy meeting room. And so much more likely to produce something different and bold and perfect for your brand.
Related articles on naming a brand
Choosing a name for your business? Here’s how to get feedback that’s actually useful
How to come up with a memorable name for your product
Need help landing on a memorable name for your brand? Get in touch!
