Start with positioning, not names
Most naming goes wrong before the first name is written, because founders start with words instead of meaning. A name is the last step of branding, not the first. The order that works: positioning, then messaging, then naming, then identity. Know who you are for and what you stand against, and the right names get obvious. Skip it, and you are picking words in the dark.
So before you brainstorm a single option, answer three things in one sentence each: who is this for, what does it replace, and what feeling should the name leave behind. Everything downstream leans on those answers.
The fifty-name method
Good names come from volume, then judgment. Aim for fifty to a hundred candidates before you let yourself have a favorite. Bad ideas are welcome: they unlock good ones. Pull from five different angles so you are not mining one vein:
- Descriptive: says what it does. Clear, but easy to sound like everyone else.
- Emotional: the feeling you want, not the function.
- Metaphor: a symbol from an adjacent world. Our own name is one: imli is Hindi for tamarind. Tangy, sharp, impossible to ignore. That is the standard, in one word.
- Invented: a coined word you can own outright. Harder to explain, easier to trademark.
- Founder story: a value, a place, a personal thread only you have.
Get co-founders and a couple of outsiders into the list. The name has to survive people who are not in your head.
Kill your favorites on purpose
A long list is worthless without hard cuts. Pressure-test every survivor against four tests, and drop anything that fails two:
- Say it out loud. If you have to spell it on a call, it is friction forever.
- Shrink it. Does it hold up small (as a 16px favicon, an app icon, a handle)? A name that only works big is half a name.
- Sit with it. Read it a hundred times. The clever ones wear out; the right ones settle.
- Room to grow. Will it still fit when the product does more than it does today? Names that describe this week's feature age badly.
Check the boring things first
Before you fall in love, do the unglamorous checks: this is where founders lose months. The domain and the name have to be cohesive, and the URL you want is often gone. Once you have a real front-runner, run a trademark search in your jurisdiction and check corporate registries. A name that is already someone else's trademark is not a name, however much you like it.
Do this while the list is still long and cheap to change. Discovering the conflict after the logo, the deck, and the launch is how a six-week naming project becomes a six-month rebrand.
Naming is the front of a bigger job: positioning, identity, and a system your future hires can actually follow. That is the Brand from scratch work we do, and it starts here. If you are staring at a blank list, book a call and we will fill it together.