You have a launch date, a product nobody can agree what to call, and a spreadsheet of two hundred names that all sound like somebody else’s company. Every name the team loves is either taken, means something awkward in a market you plan to enter, or was rejected by the managing director in under a minute. Meanwhile the packaging printer is waiting for artwork. We take naming off the spreadsheet and turn it into a process with clear stages, real checks and a decision you can defend in a board meeting.
We name companies, divisions, products and ranges, and we write the words that sit around a name once it exists: taglines, tone of voice and the messaging your sales team, website and packaging will use every day.
What makes a good brand name?
A good name is easy to say after hearing it once, easy to spell after seeing it once, and hard to confuse with anything in your category. It has room to grow, so a name built around one product does not trap you when the range doubles. It sits comfortably beside your logo, on a 16-pixel favicon and in a sentence your customer might say to a colleague.
Beyond that, the right name depends on what it has to do. A masterbrand for an engineering company needs to sound steady and serious in boardrooms on three continents. A snack range needs energy on a crowded shelf. A software feature needs to explain itself in a menu. That is why naming starts with brand strategy: if you do not know what the brand stands for, every name will look equally right and equally wrong.
Descriptive, invented or somewhere in between?
| Type | What it does well | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | Says what you do; quick to understand. | Hard to own and protect; competitors sound the same. |
| Suggestive | Hints at a benefit or feeling without spelling it out. | Needs careful screening; good ones are scarce. |
| Invented | Distinctive, often easier to clear and to secure online. | Means nothing on day one; you pay to give it meaning. |
| Founder or place | Carries heritage and a human story. | Can limit a company that outgrows its origins. |
We usually explore more than one type in parallel, so you choose between real alternatives rather than variations on one idea.
Our naming process, stage by stage
Brief
What is being named, for whom, in which markets, how it relates to the parent brand, and which words you already know you dislike.
Territories
Three or four creative directions, each written up as an idea with sample names, so you agree the direction before arguing about individual words.
Long list
A wide set of candidates within the chosen territories, filtered by us for sound, spelling, meaning and fit.
Language screening
Native-speaking colleagues and specialists check how each name sounds and what it suggests in the languages of your markets.
Availability checks
We check domain options and social handles on the platforms you need, and note what is free, taken or parked.
Presentation in context
The shortlist shown on packs, signage, a homepage, an email signature and a sales slide, never as words on a white page.
That last stage matters more than people expect. Almost every name looks weak typed in black on a slide. Seen on a carton, a van or a product page, the right one starts to feel inevitable. Our identity design team builds those mock-ups, so the name and the logo are judged together.
Trade mark clearance is your attorney’s job, and we plan for it
We are not trade mark attorneys, and we do not give legal opinions on whether a name can be registered. Trade mark searches, clearance advice and registration are carried out by your trade mark attorney, in the classes and countries that matter to you. Our role is to hand them a shortlist worth searching: usually several strong candidates in order of preference, with notes on meaning and online availability, so that if the first choice fails there is a second and third ready.
If you do not have an attorney yet, tell us early. Searches take time, and the worst outcome is falling in love with a name the week before launch and finding out it cannot be used. We build the attorney’s review into the timeline from the start.
Stuck between a name you love and one you can actually use?
Send us the naming briefTaglines that still mean something in five years
A tagline is a promise compressed into a few words, and most of them say nothing because they try to say everything. We write lines that point at the one difference your brand can prove. Some brands need a permanent line that sits under the logo. Others are better served by a campaign line that changes each year while the brand stays put. We will tell you which you need, and we test every option against your competitors’ lines, because a tagline that could belong to anyone in the category belongs to no one.
Tone of voice your whole company can use
Tone of voice guides often fail because they list adjectives: confident, friendly, expert. Everyone agrees, and nobody writes differently afterwards. We write voice guidance as decisions and examples. How long are our sentences? Do we use contractions? How do we apologise when an order is late? What do we say on a spec sheet, and how does that change on Instagram?
Each principle comes with before-and-after rewrites of your real material: a product description, a proposal paragraph, an error message, a recruitment post. People learn a voice by seeing it, not by reading about it. The guidance then sits inside your wider brand guidelines, so designers and writers work from the same document.
Messaging: what you say first, and to whom
Messaging is the structure underneath every headline. We build a simple hierarchy: one central idea, the three or four points that support it, and the proof behind each one. Then we adapt it by audience. The engineer specifying your part, the purchasing manager negotiating the price and the shopper reading a marketplace listing need different first sentences, even when the story underneath is the same.
The result feeds straight into the work that carries it: your website, packaging, sales decks, corporate communications and the pages our SEO team writes so search engines and AI assistants describe you in your own words.
Naming a range, or a product inside a bigger brand
Range and product naming has rules that company naming does not. Names need to sit together as a family, sort sensibly in a catalogue or a dropdown menu, and leave space for the products you have not invented yet. We agree a naming system before we name anything: whether products carry real names, codes, numbers or descriptors, how variants are written and who decides when a new product arrives. If you are reorganising several brands at once, our rebranding work covers the architecture decisions that come first.
How long naming takes and how we charge
A product or range name typically takes a few weeks of our time, plus whatever your attorney’s searches require. A company name, with screening in several languages and a full verbal identity, takes longer. We quote a flat fee for the agreed scope, set out in how we charge, and the first call is free.
To start, send us a few lines on what needs a name, who buys it, the countries you sell in, any names you have already ruled out and the date you need to be on press or live. If you have a trade mark attorney, tell us who they are so we can plan their review from day one.
