Last Updated on June 29, 2024 by Rovamedia
As branding pro-Marty Neumeier says in The Brand Gap, “The need for good brand names originates with customers, and customers will always want convenient ways of identifying, remembering, discussing, and comparing brands. The right name can be a brand’s most valuable asset, driving differentiation and speeding acceptance.
But choosing the right brand name can be a daunting task. How do you find a name that works? A catchy name? A name that looks great on a web banner and has an available URL? Some say it’s easy—just use a name-generating tool and call it a day. Some say it’s nearly impossible—just give them a million dollars and they’ll do it for you.
A great brand name is not just something that looks cool on your business card or is fun to say. And it isn’t great because you like it. It’s great because it communicates something to customers.
When you choose a unique name, your brand will be more outstanding compared with others. I can list some advantages based on my opinion:
- Your brand can easily attract people’s attention.
- Your brand can be embedded in customer’s minds.
- With a unique name, you can reflect your own brand’s characteristic to your customer
- Unique name & characteristics – suitable products that meet the demand → easily succeed.
How to Choose a Brand Name
A good brand name will associate your product/service with what you sell and is quick catchy and memorable. There are common traits that make a brand name easier for you to use and easier for other people to remember. Ideally, you want something that’s:
- Meaningful: It communicates your brand essence, conjures an image, and cultivates a positive emotional connection.
- Distinctive: It is unique, memorable, and stands out from your competitors.
- Accessible: People can easily interpret it, say it, spell it, or Google it. (Even if you have an unusual or bizarre name, it must be understandable.)
- Protect-able: You can trademark it, get the domain, and “own. it, both legally and in the general consciousness.
- Future-proof: It can grow with the company and maintain relevance—and be adapted for different products and brand extensions.
- Visual: You can translate/communicate it through design, including icons, logos, colors, etc.
- Unique and unforgettable. In the trade, this is called “stickiness. But the issue of stickiness turns out to be kind of, well, sticky. Every company wants a name that stands out from the crowd, a catchy handle that will remain fresh and memorable over time. That’s a challenge because naming trends change, often year by year, making timeless names hard to find (remember the dot. coms).
- Avoid unusual spellings. When creating a name, stay with words that can easily be spelled by customers. Some startup founders try unusual word spellings to make their business stand out, but this can be trouble when customers ‘Google’ your business to find you, or try to refer you to others. Stay with traditional word spelling, and avoid those catchy words that you love to explain at cocktail parties.
- Easy to pronounce and remember. Forget made-up words and nonsense phrases. Make your business name one that customers can pronounce and remember easily. Skip the acronyms, which mean nothing to most people. When choosing an identity for a company or a product, simple and straightforward are back in style, and cost less to brand.
- Make some sense. Occasionally, business owners will choose names that are nonsense words. Quirky words (Yahoo, Google, Fogdog) or trademark-proof names concocted from scratch (Novartis, Aventis, Lycos) are a big risk. Always check the international implications. More than one company has been embarrassed by a new name that had negative and even obscene connotations in another language.
- Give a clue. Try to adopt a business name that provides some information about what your business does. Calling your landscaping business “Lawn and Order” is appropriate, but the same name would not do well for a handyman business. Your business name should match your business in order to remind customers what services you provide.
Catchy names are designed to stay firmly within the mind of your target customer, no matter how many opposing titles they might see.
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Also when going through this step, keep these elements in mind:
- When you hear the name do you quickly associate it with what you are selling? Examples: Liquid Plumber, Sleep Aid, Post It, My Pillow, etc.
- Are there other companies using this name?
- Can you get the DOMAIN for it? This is a must and I mean the .com for it.
- DON’T DRIVE YOURSELF CRAZY as you can always use your name and turn it into a brand as no product name starts as a brand it is turned into a brand through endless years of marketing. Examples of names that were turned into brands: Tommy John, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, etc. Nothing about these names that are great but they became household names.
Conclusion
Because if you research a bit about the best-hit business brand names in the world, you will find that most of them are unique as they own .com domain which makes the brand name unique and cannot be used by any other business. Finding a good brand name can be exhausting, infuriating, and thrilling.
Avoid picking names that don’t allow your business to move around or add to its product line. This means avoiding geographic locations or product categories to your business name. With these specifics, customers will be confused if you expand your business to different locations or add on to your product line.
A brand name doesn’t have much value if no one can remember it. Find a name that is simple, easy to pronounce, and evocative. Brighter Naming suggests keeping things “short and sweet,” and making sure that whatever name you choose can be easily spelled and searched for online. The name must be distinctive, authentic, memorable, and enduring, so it resonates with your target audience. It should stick in their minds, build and maintain trust with your consumers, and remain relevant as your company evolves.
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