Congratulations, you’re a parent! Bringing to life a pristine new entity created from scratch, it’s your brand. And like all things birthed into magnificence and destined to prosper, it needs a name.
Unfortunately, what you might be coming to realize is there’s no baby book to scour or great-grandparent to take after when shaping the signature alias of your newborn brand. The world is at
your fingertips, and you might just want to coin a term that is cool and memorable. But when namer’s block kicks in and you are staring at a trash can full of crumpled papers of fizzled ideas, it’s probably because you’re brainstorming too broadly.
There’s a seemingly infinite and daunting list of combinations in lettering and verbiage to craft your brands name if you wander into the process unintentionally. The alphabet is long and the dictionary is thick – you’ll be doodling for decades if your only filtering criterion is sounding “cool”. Your jump-off point needs be refined and specific, and it can start with your brand attributes.
Sounds redundant right? Use qualities of something to name it – how original! But, hear me out.
The mere fact that brand names can (and often do) have some connection back to the product, service or organization they represent is often unknown to their audiences. For instance, Aldi derives from the German word for discount. Durex was made to be a mashup between “durable, reliable, excellence”. Nike was the name of the Greek goddess of victory. These brand attributes were transformed into the names that the audience knows and loves.
These connections, however indirect, are a powerful example of branding. At the surface, a brand name is the biggest single brand representation out there, often living as the first impression and the aspect that is most likely to ingrain itself in the memory of the consumer. Because of this, any additional tie back to your product that can be evoked from the name provides an additional boost to the brand equity, in such that if the name becomes commonplace on the market, the connection will become more obvious, boosting the ease of memory for your brand.
Additionally, creating a name with a connection shows a sense of purpose in your brand development. Respect is given to brands who are seen as well-thought-out and deliberate, as opposed to brands that come out of nowhere and look to have little background work given before hitting the market. If you can show that your brand name went through an extensive process and was developed by experts within the branding space, it shows the audience the importance given to the brand. They will then feel more confident connection the quality of the brand work with the quality of the overall brand product or organization.
It is likely that customers will be oblivious to your uniquely crafted backstory, and that is okay. You will join the club of countless brands whose name and logos have narratives that people will never read. But the end result will be a unique sound and a better understanding of all that makes your newborn so special. Welcome to the world!
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