How to Choose a Brand Name?

Every brand is a whisper, a dream, a desire, but you can’t talk about it or associate with it if you don’t give it a name. That’s why naming your brand is crucial.

A brand name depicts the quality, promise, mission, objective, identity, purpose, position, personality, and perception of your brand’s product or service.

In this blog, we will guide you and answer all your queries, such as how to find a brand name, how to pick a brand name, how to create a brand name, and lastly, how to name a brand.

Let’s dive deep into this and explore the various aspects of brand naming.

How To Come Up With A Brand Name?

Before anything else, one must wonder how to create an excellent and memorable brand name. Your brand name is more about your customers than about you or your company.

While you can add a personal touch, your brand name should mainly focus on your audience. Apply this 7-step formula to create a great, memorable, and unique brand name.

1. Audience Is The Key

Focusing on your audience will allow you to inspect your brand through their perception, which will become a window to fresh ideas that might help you name a brand.

You can identify your audience, note their needs or expectations from your product, and craft a name that delivers the solution to their problem and attracts them.

It’s essential to explore your audience. Ensure that you conduct thorough research. Focusing on these aspects allows you to explore the audience’s perception easily.

• Demographics: Understand your audience’s age, gender, location, education, and financial status. This will help you address their needs and desires and also determine pricing.

• Emotional Appeal: Note all the emotions you want to evoke in your target audience. A name that evokes positive emotions can attract and engage customers.

• Psychographics: Consider the audience’s lifestyle, personality traits, interests, and values. This will help you subconsciously reach them and decide on your brand’s logo design shapes.

• Market Research: Gather insights about your target audience’s perception. This will help you create a name that quickly connects and resonates positively.

• Language and Tone: Ensure the brand name is understandable and relatable to your target audience. You can use specific fonts to express the tone of your brand.

2. Embody Brand Identity And Values

Reviewing your brand values and identity is a great way to choose a name. You can set criteria and decline or reject any name that does not fulfill them.

Your brand name should embody your values and depict your brand identity. While naming a brand, keep these aspects in your mind,

• It should be relevant to your market.

• It should not be generic.

• It should not be hard to pronounciate or spell

• It is quirky and engaging.

• It should be easy to rank on Google.

• It should have a story behind it.

• It should resonate with your brand.

• It should communicate the services and products you sell.

3. Jot Down Potential Names

Write down all the names roaming in your mind. Jog your memory, brainstorm the names that intrigue you and are relevant to the brand, and scribble them down.

Then, show different words to different people and ask them what comes to their mind when they hear these words. For example, what comes to your mind when you hear “red”?

They mostly say color, pain, heart, love, blood, terror, rose, heartache, sunset, rebellion, power, danger, intensity, or more.

This way, you would get people’s perception and use it for your brand name. But where to find potential names? You can find them through,

• Questionnaires

• By finding the synonyms of the words

• Translate your word into different languages like Spanish, French, and Greek.

• By using Ai.

• Simply do a Google search and see how many times your potential word is used.

• By brainstorming.

• By running a campaign.

• Asking your team, family, or friends “if you have to name a bookstore! What would you name it?’

• By researching what everyone names their business in your marketplace.

4. Deep Linguistic Screening

If you desire to make your brand global, you might have trouble with the language barrier in almost every other country.

That’s why having a brand name that overcomes this language barrier and engages people worldwide is necessary.

According to the Internet, almost 99% of the dictionary has been used as the domain name. Selecting a name in another language will give you more opportunities to have an OK domain name.

By performing a thorough screening, you will also reduce the risk of using an inappropriate name. Many common words in our language might be curse words in another language.

It’s better to eliminate the chance of offending the audience or naming a brand after a curse word. 

You can also utilize the use of color psychology because colors also speak a language that can be communicated without any obstacles.

5. Availability And Securing

As mentioned earlier, 90% of the dictionary has been used as domain names. It is crucial to check the availability of a name before you name your brand.

To trademark your logo or brand name, it is vital to check whether the name has been previously used. If it has been used, you might find it difficult to register it.

You can check the name’s availability on the USPTO. Another disadvantage of using a used or generic name is that it will significantly impact your brand identity and diminish your visibility.

6. Put Your Brand Name In Light And Test It

Your brand name has been surrounded by darkness, unaware of everything, and known by no one until now, but now is the time to bring it to light!

Test your name and see if it comes out naturally. Ask the team to use it in their conversation, write about it to see if it fits in or looks odd, and ask people to pronounce it.

Ask for feedback to see if it looks good in logo design and matches your logo’s shape, font, slogan, or color.

Ask your team to make some random calls in which they use your brand name. Does it flow, or does it cause disruption?

You can review the logo design’s rules to see if your brand name fits in properly or looks odd.

Package a sample product with your brand name and ask people if the product aligns with the brand name. You are good to go if your brand name passes all these tests.

7. Practice Your Name

The last step is to put your brand name into practice. Name your brand! See how it does. Measure its activity, people’s responses, reviews, and your name’s performance in the market.

If you don’t see much success, use different branding strategies to incorporate your brand. Find other ways to use your logo.

If you don’t see much success even after that, rebrand your logo. Since the logo is the primary impression, there is an 80% chance that your brand name must be fixed because it doesn’t align with the design.

How To Pick A Brand Name?

Now that we know how to create a brand name, it’s time to pay attention to the essential step of the whole naming procedure: picking a name. A good brand name is memorable, easy to spell, unique, engaging, relevant, and easily recognizable.

1. Memorable

A brand name should be memorable. If you use a generic brand name, your name will lose its identity because it will forever be confused with other brands.

2. Easy To Spell

A misplacement of one letter can diminish your brand’s credibility. Ensure your brand is easy to sell and rolls off the tongue.

3. Unique And Distant

A brand name should be different, enthralling, addictive, and engaging to attract the audience and make the brand stand out.

4. Relevant

Many people confuse uniqueness with nonsense. A brand name should be unique, but it should also be relevant and meaningful. You can not put together random letters and name your brand after them.

5. Easily Recognizable

The primary purpose of a brand name is to attract customers, build loyalty, and elevate visibility; with a catchy name, the audience will always be able to recognize your brand.

Visual appeal is mandatory for a brand. When you write your brand name in your logo design, make sure you avoid the traits of bad logo design, which will repress the impact of your brand name.

How To Find A Brand Name?

To find an engaging brand name, one must explore the types of brand names.

Types Of Brand Name

You see many types of brand names in your daily life. Let’s review all of them so you can find and choose a relevant brand name,

Made-up Name: This brand name has no meaning; it is just a random arrangement of letters put together to form a name. The success rate of this type of brand name is relatively low because it needs more connection and relatability. A typical example of a made-up name is Google.

Result-Oriented Name: This brand name is mainly used for products that show efficiency and power, like tires. It promotes confidence, trust, quality, and guarantee. This type of brand is highly successful and is used chiefly in efficiency-based companies. A typical example of an efficiency-oriented brand name is Mastercraft Tires.

Transparent Name: This brand name indeed and straightforwardly tells customers about your product or services and eliminates the guess factor. It is a good approach because it saves time and gets straight to the point. It is very successful because it shows professionalism. PayPal is a famous example of a transparent brand name.

Two In One Name: This brand name combines two words and forms a brand name. It is fascinating, meaningful, and impactful. Once again, if used correctly, it has a high success rate. A typical example of a two-in-one name is Rare Beauty. It indicates that the formula is unique and a beauty brand.

Founder’s Name: If you are a celebrity influencer or your brand is a service brand, naming it after yourself makes it very interesting and promising. This type of brand name fluctuates in success rate. A famous example of a founder’s name brand is Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, whose Founder is Ira J. Cooper.

Metaphorical Name: Relating your brand name to something metaphorical develops a spiritual connection in the audience and intrigues them. This is highly successful. A famous example of a metaphorical brand name is Nike, which refers to the goddess of victory.

Other brand names include abbreviations like IKEA, leadership brands like Best Buy, foreign brands like Chanel, and service-based names like Qatar Airways.

Conclusion: How To Name A Brand

The easiest way to name your brand is to give it the name of the founder, investor, experience you promise, product you sell, quality you provide, and target audience.

Understand consumer psychology to preview better the products and names the audience craves and looks for.

Understand your purpose, what your business provides, and what the customers want. You can also name it by place, add a pun, use an acronym, add a prefix or suffix, or simply change the arrangement of the letters.

But if this all sounds tiring and overwhelming,  you need a branding agency to overcome the obstacles in your business and your dreams.

Explore More:

• What Is Branding? Understanding Its Importance

• What Is Corporate Branding? (Explained)

• What Is Brand Management? (Complete Guide)