An overview of brand-name design criteria
Naming is more systematic than it looks. An objective set of criteria beats personal taste every time.
Brand naming is a body of work that should be approached more systematically and professionally than it appears. Rather than working within the frame of personal taste, it's healthier to work with defined criteria that can be evaluated objectively.
Drawing on respected advertising authors and journals, and learning from today's successful examples, here's how you can build your own criteria for creating original names. In brief, the criteria are:
- Memorability
- Tones
- Unwritten rules
- Meaning
- Associative meaning
- Unusualness (distinctiveness)
- Spelling & pronunciation
- Sounds
- Personal preferences
Memorability
A name should make a person pause for a few seconds and still be remembered after some time has passed. To assess memorability you can use sub-methods such as rhyme, hard consonants, wordplay, figurative language, onomatopoeia and brand-name fit. It is one of the most important things to weigh.
Tones
Today every big brand has a tone of voice. In newly founded firms the tone represents the founder and first employees; in an established firm it gives clues about corporate culture. Tones are too important to ignore in naming.
Unwritten rules
Every industry has unwritten rules, and naming has its tendencies: qualifying the brand with a strong adjective, naming the brand after the founder's surname, and — in small amounts — using metaphoric names.
Meaning
A word can be perceived literally or figuratively. A literal word aids easy recognition; an invented word with no real-world meaning gives you more room to shape the brand image. Using meanings aligned with your brand helps you create creative names.
Associative meaning
Every brand makes an association. Today 'Apple' represents your phone, computer or a designer — beyond the fruit. Reaching the level of Apple's associations happens organically, over time.
Unusualness (distinctiveness)
Unusual names are bipolar: at one pole a new word, at the other a common word. A new word can help you differentiate in a crowded sector; a common word can make you easier to understand. Unusualness helps you create original names.
Spelling & pronunciation
Both matter for any good name. A name can come from a misspelling or a hard-to-pronounce word. A hard-to-pronounce word can give a foreign image, while misspelled names have fewer problems getting a URL. Deliberate spelling and pronunciation effects help create creative names.
Sounds
Even when two words are synonyms in a thesaurus, the sounds they make differ. How a name sounds matters greatly — 'kırmızı' and 'al' (two Turkish words for red) do not express the same thing.
Personal preferences
To gauge your own taste, ask yourself questions; based on your answers and your listed criteria, you can shape a name for your brand.
A few global examples
Start with the French cosmetics giant L'Oréal. Its spelling and pronunciation feel hard to everyone but the French. 'L'Oréal' is a coined word — the real name was Auréale. They likely began using a more French-sounding name to signal belonging to French culture. The inspiration is the Latin 'aureolus' (golden, beautiful, magnificent). An unusual name with no everyday use, it has, associatively, become one with the well-groomed French woman.
Johnson & Johnson, one of the world's largest personal- and medical-products firms, continues the trend of naming a brand after its founder. An interesting point: this ordinary, familiar name fuses with a disciplined, family-minded brand culture.
Pepsi's story is intriguing. Because the founder was a pharmacist, he gave the drink a healthy image with the name Pepsi, from the digestive enzyme pepsin. The initial hard consonant makes it easy to recall; coined in the late 19th century, it's quite unusual, and its spelling and pronunciation are easy in most of the world.
Siemens AG (Aktiengesellschaft) is the product of a merger; 'Aktiengesellschaft' is German for a joint-stock company. Out of respect for its German structure and expertise, Siemens never translates it and shortens it to 'AG' — a path many German firms follow. The name itself comes from the founder's surname, and is often mispronounced by non-German speakers.