Green, as they say in the fashion world, is the new black. It's the color that conveys a spectrum of happy ideas: environmental health, recycling, alternative energy, and generally doing the right thing. And green business and product names are flourishing. Continue reading...

When I'm feeling stuck on a naming project, I like to remind myself of brand names' myriad and diverse genealogies. Companies have been named for their founders (L.L. Bean), products for their founders' daughters (Mercedes-Benz). Trademarks have been created from street names and star names, numbers and neologisms, contemporary slang and archaic vocabulary. Continue reading...

Writing a book is hard: just ask any author. But coming up with a title for your book? That's easy.

Honestly.

Oh, you've probably heard a different story, about how choosing a book title is the toughest part of the whole endeavor. But I'm going to share with you a six-word secret for skipping directly to a happy ending: Find a formula and copy it. Continue reading...

In Part One and Part Two of this series I shared six tools that professional name developers use to turn words into business and product names. In this final installment I'll describe three more-advanced strategies. Don't worry: you don't need special training to use them. Just be aware that implementing them successfully is often trickier than you might think. Continue reading...

In Part One of this series, I talked about three common ways to create product and company names: from people's names, from connecting two words, and by creating a blend or portmanteau. As naming exercises go, those three techniques are among the most basic. In this installment we move into Intermediate Naming: techniques that require a bit more mastery of the workings of language but can reward you with distinctive, memorable names. Continue reading...

When you're naming a business or a product, you look at words through a different lens than the novelist or historian. They think in sentences, paragraphs, chapters, or even volumes; you must think in single-word nuggets of meaning. Your job is to distill the essence -- and even the unknown future -- of your product or company in one, or sometimes two, perfectly suited words. Continue reading...

I'm often approached by small businesses or organizations that can't afford professional name-development fees. And, frankly, a comprehensive name-development process, from creative brief through extensive legal review, may be more than they need. Entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop stores, and small nonprofit organizations often already have some name ideas. They just need some way to confirm that their hunches are on target. Continue reading...