Five lessons every company should learn before starting a naming project

Most people think naming is a creative sprint. Sit in a room. Throw words on a wall. Pick the one everyone likes. Done. This belief collapses the moment you try to legally register a name. The first real lesson of naming is simple. The challenge is not the name. The challenge is the process.

Here are five lessons I learned from naming projects that took more time, more legal fees, and more emotional resilience than anyone expected.

Lesson 1: The problem is not creativity. The problem is that most pronounceable words are already taken.

People assume there are thousands of beautiful words waiting to be claimed. There are not. Most real words are not legally available in your category. Many invented words are also taken. Some are unpronounceable in key markets. Several fail linguistic checks in surprising and unfortunate ways.

So the real work is not inventing names. The real work is navigating constraints without losing strategic intent. Anyone can name a company in five seconds. Naming a company that can survive trademark law, global markets, and real-world use is the real job.

Lesson 2: Risk tolerance drives everything

A leadership team must decide how bold they want to be. Some names require legal permission. Some require domain purchases. Some carry risk in certain regions.

If the team wants something bold, they must accept the cost and complexity that come with it. If they want zero risk, they must accept that the final name will likely sound like every other safe, forgettable brand in the category.

Lesson 3: Naming is subjective. Asking people what they like is a disaster.

If you ask ten people what to name a child, you get ten answers. If you ask a management team to pick their favorite brand name, you also get ten answers, plus an argument. People react based on associations from their past. Childhood memories. Movies they hated. Competitors they fear.

This is why open voting destroys naming projects. People will always gravitate toward the safest and most familiar option, usually the least distinctive one.

You reduce subjectivity by creating criteria grounded in strategy rather than personal taste. These criteria let you evaluate names by fit and potential, not nostalgia or gut feelings.

Lesson 4: A name on a slide is not a name. People need to see it alive.

A name cannot be judged in isolation. You have to show it on signage, packaging, a website, and a business card. People need to live with it for a few days. Every strong name feels strange at first. Then it clicks.

And this is the part everybody forgets. The original meaning disappears over time.

• Nobody thinks about the rainforest when they hear Amazon.

• Nobody thinks about bulls when they hear Red Bull.

• Nobody thinks about cocaine or kola nuts when they hear Coca-Cola.

Names become the company. The meaning is created by the business, not the dictionary. This is why first impressions are often useless.

Lesson 5: Linguistics and legality are not optional

Modern brands live everywhere at once. A name that works in English may be offensive in Indonesian. A name that sounds strong in German may become a joke in Spanish. Social media wipes out borders. If your name is ridiculous in one language, the whole world will know by lunchtime.

This is why rigorous linguistic checks are essential. So are full legal searches in all relevant classes. Skip this, and you risk a scandal, a lawsuit, or both.

Lesson 6: Keep the process tight. Not everyone should be invited.

Naming is emotional. People get attached to names for reasons they cannot explain. Do not ask employees to vote. Do not ask the entire board to weigh in. Do not ask random friends, neighbors, or the accountant’s cousin.

People should decide only if they have been part of the journey. They need to see the early rounds, the legal rejections, and the linguistic pitfalls. They need to understand why some names die and why others survive. Only then can they make a rational choice.

A naming project succeeds when the team sets clear criteria and understands the constraints before generating ideas. The quality of the process determines the quality of the name, not the cleverness of the brainstorm.