Categories of names are like plots of stories. While there aren’t that many of them, there is enough variety so that everyone can find something to disagree about.
As an analyst, I think there are only three fundamental categories and everything else fits in one of them.
Functional/Benefit Names: Corry’s Slug and Snail Death, No More Tears Baby Shampoo, General Electric, ChatGPT
Conceptual Names: Tacoma, Windstream, Titlest, Nike, Twitter, Instagram, Google
Founder’s Names: Toyota, Guinness, Ford, Johnson & Johnson
But when you are coming up with names — all alone with the tyranny of the blank page or the blinking cursor — it can be useful to have many more kinds of names to think about, even if, strictly speaking, they overlap a little. Like these:
Simple word as descriptor or abstract: Apple, Swoop, Slack
Misspelled: Lyft, Google, Spanx
Acronyms: IBM, NASA, NABISCO
Compound: SnapChat, SplitWav, Facebook
Functional Names: National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), General Electric, General Mills
Phrases: StumbleUpon, Ready to Rise
Blends: Pintrest, Groupon
Made Up/Abstract: Kodak
Transmutations: Zappos, Zumba
Acronyms: IBM, HP
Play On Words: Deja Brew, EyeQ, Inner Peaks
Metaphoric: Nike, LoanSpring, RobinHood, MorningStar
Visual: Iron Mountain, Blue Rhino
Just Foreign: La Brosa, Nomi d’Italia
Repurposed: Banana Republic
From Mythology: Nike, Pandora, Ajax, Cadmus
Poetic/Alliterative: Dunkin Donuts, LuLuLemon, Piggly Wiggly, Coca-Cola
This & That: Abercrombie & Fitch, Crate & Barrel, Owl and Lark
People’s Names: Ford Motor Company, Windsor Harlow, Barnes and Noble, Trader Joes
Geographic: Brooklyn Brewery, California Pizza Kitchen
Evocative Names: Outward Bound, Serenity Spa
If one of these categories feels good to you, write some names in it.
A SECRET — SCRABBLE TILES
None of the naming theory matters. Use all of this to help you generate names, not to help you evaluate names. Ultimately your customer evaluates the name — and even that is filtered through their experience — meaning that what you do is more important than what your name is.
I have seen branding firms mock the idea of throwing a handful of scrabble tiles out on a table as a way of coming up with names. Whoever wrote that is arrogant and wrong (funny how often those two things go hand-in-hand.)
The only possible problem with the Scrabble tile method is that it’s too slow to throw the tiles by hand.
So I created a simple python script to generate words from the scrabble tile distribution. (based on the frequencies of letters in English words) And it’s a surprisingly useful tool.
In fact, I just used it to come up with Talibut. Which is either a new, tasteless fish-oil tablet derived from fish oil, or a frozen whitefish patty targeted for religious consumers in Afghanistan
Try it for yourself:
Why that works for me, but might not work for you?
It’s just a tool. And naming is something like carpentry. The tools are available to everybody, but only a few have taken the time to develop the skill.
So when I look at made-up words or collections of random letters, I probably see more possibility than most folks. But I have more experience with words than most people. More hours reading, more hours writing. And more hours spend at the difficult task of generating names.
The real secret to this process is that there is no secret. It’s just hard work and endurance like anything else. Or a high enough tolerance for coming up with bad ideas to sustain you until you get to the good ones.
I have a friend who is a fabulous illustrator. And I once asked him how to learn to draw. He told me not to think of it like that. He said, “Everybody has 10,000 bad drawings in them. And you just have to get them out of you, to free up the good ones.”
I believe him, but I found I just didn’t have a high enough tolerance to get through 10,000 bad drawings. That makes the other secret of naming hiring someone else to do it for you.