Narrowing Down Your Brand Name Ideas | Brand Naming

There are few things to remember when you’re picking the right name for your company. Here are twelve things you wont want to miss.

On a recent flip through the Wall Street Journal I came across an article on how to pick the right name for your business.  It was a cute and short blog post by the Journals Wendy Bounds.

What struck me about this article was that the author quoted a huge San Francisco naming company called Eat My Words.  This company has worked on and named some of the biggest names in companies and Fortune 500 Companies.

The team at Brandings is well aware of this company and could not sing their praises more.  This company has developed some of the best names in the business and has been producing catchy and meaningful names for years.  They are a huge great company but they are just out of the price range of most people starting a business.

One of the great things at Brandings, and one of ideas that we’re so proud of, is that Brandings is affordable for just about any company looking for a perfect name.  We have names ranging from a hundred dollars to much more and have custom company naming packages that fit every size of business, from the one man entrepreneur to the larger company looking to rebrand.

I digress.  So in this article, they have included what Eat My Words called their Smile and Scratch Test.  What this is, is a twelve step, pneumonic device on what to consider when developing the perfect name for your company and the things to avoid.

Picking the Right Name for a Company

We really liked it and thought we would share it with you:

Simple — one easy-to-understand concept
Mmeaningful — customer instantly “get it”
Iimagery — visually evocative, creates a mental picture
Legs — carries the brand, lends itself to wordplay
Emotional — empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens

Then scratch the name if it’s got these deal-breakers:

Spelling-challenged — you have to tell people how to spell it
Copycat – similar to competitors names
Random – disconnected from the brand
Annoying – hidden meaning, forced
Tame – flat, uninspired, boring, nonemotional
Curse of knowledge – only insiders get it
Hard-to-pronounce – not obvious, relies on punctuation

We think this pneumonic devise is really interesting and that anyone naming a company should really follow their advice.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, than you’ll know that we’ve been preaching these “SMILE” values for years.

Narrowing Down Your Company Name Ideas

We really couldn’t implore you more than to consider the “I” or “imagery” of your business name as we feel that the right name for your business is one that you can picture in your head.  The right business name should be like that song that you can’t get out of your head.

We would like to thank Wendy Bounds for writing this article and Eat Our Words for this devise and some great business name.  Please follow this link to Wendy’s article and links to the Eat My Words site.

Thank you for reading and please let us know if you have any questions about picking the right name for your business by letting us know and posting below!