Bite-sized Branding Episode 4 - How to Come Up With the Perfect Brand Name

Sometimes it comes to you like a bolt of lightening and you're amazed that no one has ever come up with it before!! But sometimes, it's not so easy. So we thought we'd share our insights on how to create an amazing business name.

If you have it, get the team involved

You may or may not have a team, but if you do they can offer great perspectives based on their experiences and knowledge. It also gives themselves a sense of greater buy in to the business as they will fell like you are all building it together. They become part of the journey for growing the brand, forming and aligning to its values.

Method to creating a great and unique Brand Name

1. Share words and phrases that will direct the ideas generation: You want to end up with a bit of a brain dump that will help you refine the words that truly resonate with the brand direction.
   
   
   
2. Create a name that can become a verb or become common language: For example "Just Google it." Or how a brand like 'Vodafone' becomes 'Voda'.
   - Note: be careful that the abbreviated word is not something offensive.
   
   
3. Keep it short: Around seven letters or less will make it easier to recall, spell and refer to in conversation.
   
   
4. Try combining words to create a unique name: If you are creating a word try to ensure it can be spelt phonetically, this way when customers are trying to refer to it, they're not sitting there going "Was it an o or a u, with two t's think?"
   
   
5. Research the key words: Have a flip through your dictionary or thesaurus, look at word origins and translations as sometimes a unique word with a similar meaning will appear. If you blend these words with common jargon, you can create a unique word with deeper meaning.
   
   
6. Vowels with meaning: Using certain vowels can give a different feel to a name, here's a little short list of uses:
   • 'i's and 'y's can give a fresh and techy feel to a brand, it's agile and many tech-startups have used them to take a simple word and make it funky ie. Shofiy. You'll see it applied at the end of name as 'ify', 'ity' or switching a 'y' for and 'i'. Though starting a product with 'i' is a bit old hat now. 
   • 'a's and 'e's are proactive letters, good for creating movement in a word. Double 'ee' and 'aa' have an interesting shape and can be played with like Rebel has by turning one of the letters.
   • 'u's have always had this easy ability to turn 'you' into 'u', just as we have for Ucidity, we dropped the 'L' to focus on 'U'. 
   • 'o's can have a more formal tone, just think of the Xero's and Ooh's of this world.
   
   
7. Mind map it out and distill further until you can select a top 3
   
   
   
8. Check its availability: Do an internet search for your new name. Check the following sites:
   • https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/
   • https://www.google.com/
   • https://www.facebook.com/
   • You have to check the domain availability also, I have found godaddy.com to be a good resource for this

Not sure how to take the next step? Get in contact with us to learn more about our Brand Naming Workshops and how we distill your business concept into a truly unique name that will blaze a trail in the industry.