What’s My Name Again? The Dark Art of Brand Naming

Brand naming is a battlefield. A dark art — sorcery with letters. Crafting a word that sticks in people's minds and cements your brand's place in the market hierarchy is arguably the most challenging task for any business.

Creating a unique and defensible brand name isn’t the only thing that determines success, but just forget for a moment anything you already know about branding and consider that your name is one of maybe two things that people can immediately call to mind when thinking about who you are. 

The other will likely be colour, but that’s a conversation for another time.

If in doubt, state the obvious. 

Despite my concrete advice below, I’m loathe to lay on you, even now, some ultra-pretentious Grand Unified Theory for brand naming. 

Conventional wisdom tells us that simple is best, and it’s not wrong, but anything conventional delivers just that — convention.

Consumers fill in gaps or missing information when perceiving a brand name, guided by their past experiences and knowledge. In the gestalt, the brand name needs to work in harmony with the context it’s being delivered in, and a well-crafted brand name should lead consumers towards the intended brand identity and message.

Picture yourself talking to someone at the shops. You ask a stranger to hold your sweet child, they ask “what’s his name” “Graeme” you say, as their head spins, remembering all the good and bad Graeme’s they’ve encountered in the past. 

They’ll either remember that poor kid for good or bad or immediately forget.

Sometimes, the name doesn’t need to make sense. It just has to be memorable.

If you, the brand owner, decide on the brand name early on before you’ve engaged a brand designer, it should be stressed-tested against the brand strategy so it makes sense!

For example, if you’re naming a cheap & cheerful asian takeaway, then ‘Thai 24/7’ is undifferentiated. ‘Thai Tarss’ is much better.

Wink wink ;)

Here in sunny Queensland, we see a lot of tradies: plumbers, landscapers, chippies, sparkies etc.

With surprising regularity, you’ll notice their trucks speed past you on the motorway — and you'll swear up and down that they are all the same.

BCJ Plumbing
HJ Plumbing
MTT Plumbing & Gas
NGL Constructions
KV Build
BMC Auto Electrical
ARC Electrical Maintenance 
CSI Soil Testing

In an alphabet soup of sameness, you can see how just by virtue of having a memorable brand name, your competitive positioning improves.

“Walking Sex Furniture”

Are you familiar with 1990’s ascendent boy band colossi, the Backstreet Boys and their ‘99 hit, ‘I Want It That Way’?

Who is the ‘I’ in ‘I want it that way? Me or you? What way do they want it? What even is IT? How does a song that feels so natural to sing, dive so quickly into semantic chaos?

It is lyrically vague, but follows a songwriting approach known as Melodic Math. Swedish super producer Max Martin (Ace of Base, The Weekend, *NSYNC, Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears, Coldplay, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, Backstreet Boys etc.) who popularised the technique, believes that lyrics should serve the melody.

The technique emphasises simplicity by means of stripping the arrangement to it's most basic elements and building it up from there. Adding or removing syllables can throw off the balance of the song.

People are attracted to something they are familiar with — this makes them feel like listening to the song again and again. So Melodic Math recycles melodic parts again and again to create familiarity.

So in other words, it doesn’t have to make sense — it only has to be catchy.

This is the hill that I will die on: 3 Syllables is the sweet spot for brand names. 2 is acceptable. 4 is OK, but 3 is optimal.

Like Martin, this is my Melodic Math equivalent.

Why? 3 Syllables has just enough to have a lilt, a rhythm to saying it. The intonation can change to make it sing.

While brand names (and positioning statements/taglines) don't have melodies in the traditional sense, but they do have a phonetic quality that can be combined with repetition (picture crowds at a political rally chanting U-S-A!, U-S-A!)

A brand name with 3 syllables can be easily repeated without feeling tiresome or forced.

Keep in mind some names taken from languages other than your audience’s native tongue might need some attention to the way they’re pronounced. E.g. ‘Soo-BAA-ru’ or ‘SOO-baru’. 

A simple kerning adjustment in the logo might be all it needs.

Grand slam: the verb.

The holy grail of brand naming is when your brand name enters everyday vernacular as a verb. 

E.g. ‘Can you Photoshop it?’

This phenomenon is also known as ‘proprietary eponym’. Becoming the go-to term makes it harder for competitors to gain traction in the same space — but it is nigh impossible to achieve this level of brand recognition and integration into everyday language. Any brand designer worth their salt will run for cover if a client ever asked for that kind of brand recognition. It requires a combination of innovation, widespread adoption and cultural significance.

Good brands are ones that readily come to mind, and a strong brand name should be a recognisable part of the life of your audience. A successful brand is built with a well-crafted name that stands out, while balancing simplicity and distinctiveness.