Blog Archives

Most execs are doing naming ass backwards

If you are naming your kid or your pet, you think of the names you like and then you pick one. This method works fine because every name you come up with is available, other than a few you eliminate

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Naming Resources, Rotten Names, Strange Names, Technology Names, Trademarks

Google to learn Alphabet

After massive growth with a very young management team, it seams like they are going to stop Googling in preschool and go to kindergarten to learn their alphabet. Along the way they are sure to shake up some old notions,

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Name Changes, Name Origins, Naming News, Technology Names, Trademarks

Twilio name tries too hard

When I first heard of this company, it was the name that caught my attention. That in turn made me concentrate hard to try to understand what they did. In due course I realized the potential of their tool kits

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming News, Strange Names, Trademarks

Absolutdata forced to run from their own trademark application.

I am not a teetotaler (well not quite) nor a prude, but I still don’t like software companies named after alcohol drinks. Yes I know Blue Martini was successful for a while, but I never could bring myself to even

Posted in Domain Names, Name Origins, Naming Education, Naming News, Technology Names, Trademarks

Why Airbnb is a really cool, good name

I am not so sure about the logo, but for a service that thrives so much on word of mouth and word of mouse, not to mention publicity to spread the brand name, who cares. But for those of you

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Name Origins, Trademarks

New .club top level domain family starting to make sense

An executive from GoDaddy was recently quoted about how some of the new domain registrars were not doing a good job of promoting and supporting their unique and different top level domain rights. On the whole I agree with him

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Naming Education, Naming News, Sports Naming

Where will names come from in 2015?

For 2015 many news magazines are predicting that the age of innovation is alive and well. For me that translates into lots more products, systems, solutions and start-up companies. All of which need a name. So how will the management

Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Name Changes, Name Origins, Naming News, Trademarks

Names for the next sharing economy business

Now that Uber, Lyft and Airbnb are off and running with mega big growth worldwide, it is no surprise to see a rush to create other such social sharing businesses. Postmates is a personal courier service – sort of Uber

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Naming Education, Naming News, Strange Names

H-P spinoff group to be called Compaq!

When AT&T acquired NCR, they called that division AT&T GIS, somehow thinking that Global Information Systems and NCR’s massive worldwide penetration would rub off on their whole company. Apparently no one told them that in the computer industry GIS was

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names

Is Uber a better brand name than Lyft?

At a recent branding seminar there was a brief discussion about why Uber was a better brand than Lyft. This really wasn’t a fair question. It should have been, why is Uber getting more traction than Lyft this early in

Posted in Branding, Consumer Goods, Domain Names, Naming Education, Naming News, Trademarks

Recent Naming Articles

Brand insider articles from an experienced marketing team.

Mar 2023: Pricing your naming project

Oct 2021: The devil is in the trademark details

Mar 2019:The Power and Value of a Trademark

Jan 2019:4 common branding mistakes

Oct 2018: You named it What?

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See his industry naming commentary (where he takes a critical look at names) via the blog on this site