How to choose a brand name

Looking for the perfect brand name for your new startup?

There’s no doubt that choosing the perfect brand name is one of the most exciting and important elements of startup branding… But it’s also one of the hardest.

Get it right, and you’re a household name, like Airbnb, Uber, or Pepsi.

But if you get it wrong, you could be the next “Tea Party Bookshop” (YIKES!). Then you may be forced to rebrand or face embarrassment, failure or even aggression.

Building a brand and developing a strong brand identity takes time and involves much more than a slogan and a logo. Before jumping into choosing a brand name, check out this video to get the basics of building a brand identity.

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In this article, we’re going to run through the following 5 steps that will help you come up with some brand name ideas that will work for your business:

• Creating a brand avatar
• Creating a brand archetype
• Generating brand name ideas
• Checking brand name availability
• Testing your brand name

Let’s jump in!

Step 1: Create your brand avatar

No- not THAT Avatar!

Before you even begin to think about a name for your brand, it’s imperative to identify, as precisely as possible, the characteristics of the ideal customer for your brand’s products or services.

If you don’t know who you’re creating your brand for, then you will never find a compelling name.

Defining your target customer will come up when you’re creating your marketing and business strategies too, so it’s well worth the effort. It’s just that a lot of startups can be tempted to define their brand name right away – before they’ve fleshed out these details.

Sure – come up with a working title. But don’t definitively set your brand name until you’re sure it will appeal to your target audience and reflect your brand values.

The creation of effective brand avatars is, to some extent, an intuitive and creative process, but it’s important to use hard data as well.

Web tools such as Alexa can provide significant demographic information about visitors to competitors’ websites, including, age, gender, and location.

Looking at competitors’ Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts can also provide some useful “soft” intelligence about their customer base and online following. From these sources, you should be able to easily construct a clear picture of the customer your brand is targeting.

But this is just the beginning…

Step 2: Create your brand archetype

Having created your brand avatar, it is also necessary to define a brand archetype when coming up with a brand name that will work.

Put simply, the goal is to understand as clearly as possible what your brand will mean or represent, which is an essential prerequisite for deciding upon the best brand name to attract potential customers.

The concept of the archetype is derived from Jungian psychology, but there is no need to go deep into that.

For the purpose of picking a brand name, it’s only necessary to understand that the avatar is the personification of your customer while the archetype is the personification of your company, along with its products or services.

[Tweet “How will your brand create an emotional resonance with your customers?”]

Another helpful way to think of this is to ask yourself how your brand will create an emotional resonance with your intended customers. What brand values do you want to communicate? Would a pun or play on words be appropriate for the image you would like to build for your business? Or do you want to bring a sense of luxury to mind?

You want your brand name to indicate something about who you are or what you do.

Look at these two brand name examples for inspiration:

• Nike: This well-known brand is also the name of the ancient Greek Goddess who personified victory. There’s a whole lot of powerful meaning behind those four letters.
• Dove: Doves conjure up feminine images of purity and softness. Ideal for a toiletry brand.

There are 12 main brand archetypes, including the Hero, the Innocent, and the Outlaw, to name just a few. Spend some time deciding which one fits your brand the best. Alternatively, you can take the ‘Discover Your Brand Archetype Quiz‘ to make the process even easier.

It’s also a good idea to take some time with your team to think about the non-verbal meanings and emotional associations you want for your brand. When you’ve decided, make sure to note them down so you can add them to your branding guidelines in future. This will help ensure the different elements of your branding are consistent, cohesive and effective.

If you need some inspiration, this guide includes some great insights on how to create your own brand style guide.

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Step 3: Generate brand name ideas

The next task is to generate brand name ideas, which both represent your brand archetype and appeal to your brand avatar. There are no hard and fast rules for this, but here are some general principles that can help you out.

Keep your brand name simple

The perfect brand name for your startup will generally be short, simple and easy to say. Ideally, it will be a two-syllable word, as these generally gain more traction with target audiences and are more memorable.

Often a successful startup will develop a range of products, so your brand name shouldn’t be too specific. For example, although Footjoy is probably best known for making quality golf shoes, its name is “Footjoy” not “Footjoy Golf Shoes”, as the company now also sells a wide range of golfing and outdoor gear.

With this in mind, you can start brainstorming brand name ideas.

Use word association to brainstorm brand name ideas

Start with some simple word association games. Write down, say or shout as many words associated with your brand as possible.

You want ideally to have dozens, or even hundreds, of contenders. These can then be narrowed down to just a few which you or your team think are worth testing out. A good place to start is with this in-depth article from Squadhelp, which exhausts all angles of choosing a brand.

If you’re working on your own, friends and family may be able to give you useful feedback.

To kickstart the process, you might try inventing a completely new word or combining two ordinary words to form a new one – Footjoy is an example of this.

If you can’t get the creative juices flowing, consider flipping through an online thesaurus for a few minutes:

1. Enter a possible name for your startup brand and the thesaurus will generate a list of synonyms and related words.
2. You can then enter some of these related words to gather even more ideas.
3. Create a spreadsheet of the results.
4. Recombine them to create completely new, though often nonsensical, words.

Use online tools to grow your brand name list

Once you’ve got this spreadsheet, try going over to Name Mesh and throw some of the words into its brand name generator.

If that’s not helping, you can also take a look at these 7 popular types of brand names for even more thought-provoking ideas.

Consider using foreign language words

Para obter mais opções, você também pode considerar o uso de palavras que não estejam em inglês. Aqueles das línguas românicas — como francês, espanhol ou italiano — costumam ser muito eficazes na nomeação de produtos de luxo, principalmente em mercados como roupas, joias, cosméticos, perfumes, alimentos e vinho.

Mas é preciso cuidado... Significados secundários em gírias locais podem transmitir o oposto do que se pretende, ou até mesmo causar ofensas graves. Use o Google Translate ou faça uma simples pesquisa na web e nas redes sociais para reduzir o risco de isso acontecer.

Etapa 4: verifique a disponibilidade de suas melhores ideias de marca

Depois de ter uma lista restrita de possíveis marcas, é importante verificar se elas não estão em uso no momento. Certifique-se de que eles ainda não sejam marcas registradas de outra empresa e que um nome de domínio adequado esteja disponível. Para fazer isso, você deve:

1. Faça uma pesquisa de nome de domínio com um dos principais fornecedores, como GoDaddy. Se você planeja usar links de marca como parte de sua estratégia de marca, você também pode usar Pesquisa de nomes de domínio da Rebrandly, que pode ser filtrada por setor. Essa é uma maneira rápida e eficaz de verificar se outra pessoa está usando suas ideias de marca. Mas é aconselhável também acompanhar isso com uma simples pesquisa no Google.
2. Procure páginas do Facebook e contas do Twitter usando o mesmo nome de marca ou similar.
3. Verifique se os nomes de suas startups em potencial não estão protegidos por marca registrada. Pesquise em Escritório de Patentes dos EUA ou use um serviço como Namechk para fazer isso.

Você pode descobrir mais sobre como escolher um nome de domínio para sua marca e como eles podem ser usados para links de marca no vídeo abaixo.

Etapa 5: teste o nome da sua marca

Antes de finalmente decidir qual é a marca perfeita para sua empresa, é uma boa ideia testar sua lista de finalistas. Isso permitirá que você descubra o quão atraentes e memoráveis seus clientes em potencial os consideram.

Se você já tem clientes de outros produtos, pode pesquisá-los via Facebook, e-mail ou um dos muitos outros ferramentas de pesquisa on-line.

Se você é uma startup totalmente nova, os testes podem ser apenas parte de sua pesquisa de mercado, que pode ser conduzida entre familiares, amigos, colegas e nas redes sociais.

Seja qual for o caso, certifique-se de testar a marca escolhida de forma completa e objetiva. Se as pessoas estiverem lhe dando respostas negativas ou acharem que você vende tacos de beisebol quando deveria vender tênis de golfe, você saberá que está errando.

Permaneça cético. Preste atenção não apenas ao que as pessoas dizem e como elas respondem, mas também à reação inicial delas.

Selecione o nome de marca perfeito

Finalmente, depois de examinar e testar adequadamente sua marca, você pode começar a configurar sua presença on-line.

Então, vá até lá, capture todos os domínios relevantes, páginas do Facebook, contas do Twitter e qualquer outra coisa necessária para finalizar o processo. Crie seu logotipo em torno da marca escolhida e comece a desenvolver uma marca relevante e confiável que seja fiel aos seus valores.

Algumas considerações finais...

Seu nome de marca será apenas uma parte do desenvolvimento de longo prazo de sua marca. Considere o exemplo da Apple, uma das marcas mais poderosas do mundo, cujo nome não tem nenhuma relação com seus produtos.

Isso foi um processo. Existem muitas opções para encontrar a marca perfeita e, em última análise, isso se tornará uma peça muito importante da a identidade da sua empresa.

As marcas são mais do que nomes e logotipos. Portanto, defina sua empresa e o que você representa e compartilhe-a com o mundo.