Brand Naming
The Art Of Brand Naming
Creating Memorable Brand Identities
Naming is one of the most important elements of any brand. As a premier brand naming agency, Starfish understands that your name is often the first touchpoint customers have with your brand and can significantly impact their perception and recall. While always an engaging and collaborative process, brand naming can become challenging, if not frustrating, when trying to secure a trademark or a URL.
Experience That Delivers Results
As a branding firm, when asked to develop names in our process, we’ve developed hundreds of names for companies across diverse industries. Our success in this discipline is rooted in a thorough process that minimizes subjectivity and successfully delivers names that are always original, strategic, and memorable. Our team of naming specialists combines linguistic expertise, creative thinking, and strategic insight to develop names that resonate with target audiences and stand the test of time.
Strategy-First Approach
At Starfish, our brand naming services always start with the brand strategy. This is the filter through which we assess a name’s meaning, relevance, and alliteration. Without these guardrails, the process can fall into subjective assessment and personal preferences rather than strategic alignment. By anchoring the naming process in your brand strategy, we ensure that every name we develop supports your brand positioning, values, and business objectives.
Comprehensive Naming Process
We then create a range of naming territories that fit the criteria and never present a name you can’t own. When we ideate, we keep a sharp eye on the name’s etymology, origin, and meaning. Our process also includes domestic and global domain and name trademark searches to verify availability before presentation.
As a thorough brand naming agency, our process includes several key phases:
- Strategic Briefing: Understanding your brand, audience, competitors, and naming objectives
- Naming Territories: Developing conceptual directions that align with your strategy
- Name Generation: Creating hundreds of potential names across approved territories
- Preliminary Screening: Conducting initial trademark and URL availability checks
- Refinement: Narrowing options to a shortlist of strategic, available names
- Validation: Performing comprehensive legal searches and linguistic checks
- Presentation: Presenting final names with strategic rationale and creative context
The Value of Expert Naming
Poor naming decisions can lead to legal challenges, market confusion, or expensive rebranding efforts down the road. Our brand naming services help you avoid these pitfalls while creating valuable brand assets. The right name can:
- Differentiate your brand in crowded markets
- Communicate key brand attributes instantly
- Facilitate trademark protection
- Support international expansion
- Create strong brand recall
- Provide a foundation for brand storytelling
Our Naming Philosophy
As a dedicated brand naming agency, we believe that great names balance art and science. They must be creatively compelling while strategically sound, emotionally resonant, and legally defensible. Our collaborative approach involves your team throughout the process, ensuring that the final name has internal buy-in and an authentic connection to your organization.
If you’re curious about our name, Starfish, there’s a good and relevant story behind it we’d be happy to share with you. It exemplifies our philosophy of creating names with meaning and memorability. Interested in our brand naming services? Contact Starfish today to discuss how we can help create a powerful name for your brand, product, or service.
