Igor Naming Guide 12

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The Igor Naming Guide
An Essential Framework for Creating the Most Powerful Name in Your Space

The key is to find a fresh way into the hearts and minds of your
audience, redefine and own the conversation in your space, and
engage people on as many levels as possible.
As you begin, it is essential to decide what you want your new name
to do for you.
A name can:
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Achieve separation from your competitors
Demonstrate to the world that you are different
Reinforce a unique positioning platform
Create positive and lasting engagement with your audience
Be unforgettable
Propel itself through the world on its own, becoming a no-cost,
self-sustaining PR vehicle
Provide a deep well of marketing and advertising images
Be the genesis of a brand that rises above the goods and
services you provide
Completely dominate a category

Name / Brand Development
The relative strengths and weakness of the four major categories of
names are discussed in this section:
1. Functional / Descriptive Product & Company Names
When descriptive names work: When a company names products
and their brand strategy is to direct the bulk of brand equity to the
company name. Examples of companies that follow this name
strategy are BMW, Martha Stewart and Subway.
When descriptive names don't work: When they are company
names. Company names that are descriptive are asked to perform
only one task: explaining to the world the business that you are in.
This is an unnecessary and counterproductive choice.
The downside here is many-fold. This naming strategy creates a
situation that needlessly taxes a marketing and advertising budget
because descriptive company names are drawn from a small pool of
relevant keywords, causing them to blend together and fade into the
background, indistinguishable from the bulk of their competitors - the
antithesis of marketing.

As an example of the "brand fade out" caused by choosing
descriptive company names, consider the names of the following
branding and naming companies:

Brand/Branding Companies

Brand-DNA (.com)
Brand-DNA (.net)
Brand A
Brand 2.0
Brand Design
Brand Doctors
Brand Evolve
Brand Evolution
Brand Forward
Brand Juice
Brand Ladder
Brand Link
Brand Maverick
Brand Mechanics
Brand Meta
Brand People
Brand Positioning
Brand Salt
Brand Scope
Brand Sequence
Brand Slinger
Brand Solutions
Brand Vista
Independent Branding
Not Just Any Branding
The Better Branding
Company
The Brand Company
The Brand
Consultancy

Name/Naming Companies

ABC Name Bank
Brighter Naming
Moore Names
Name Development
Name Evolution
Name Generator
Name-It
Name Lab
Name One
Name Pharm
Name Quest
Name Razor
Name Sale
Name Sharks
Name-Shop
Name Stormers
Name Tag
Name Trade
Name Works
Name Works
Namebase
Naming
Naming Systems
Naming Workshop
Namington
Strategic Name
Development
The Naming Company
Wise Name

These kinds of company names are easily avoided if a thorough
competitive analysis is performed and if the people doing the
naming understand the following basic concept:
The notion of describing a business in the name assumes that
company names will exist at some point without contextual
support, which is impossible. Company names will appear on
websites, store fronts, in news articles or press releases, on
business cards, in advertisements, or, at their most naked, in
conversations.
There are simply no imaginable circumstances in which company
names can exist without contextual, explanatory support, which
means they are free to perform more productive tasks.
2. Invented Product & Corporation Names
There are basically two types of invented names for products or
corporations:
1) Names built upon Greek and Latin roots. Examples:
Acquient, Agilent, Alliant, Aquent.
The upside:
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These names breeze through the trademark process
because they are unique, eliminating the potential for
trademark conflict.
For companies looking for a hassle-free way to secure
a domain name without a modifier, this is a fairly
painless route to go.
They are free of negative connotations.
Because these names are built upon Greek and Latin
morphemes, they are felt to be serious sounding.
For the above reasons, these are the easiest names to
push through the approval process at gigantic global
corporations.

The downside:
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Because these types of names are built on Greek and
Latin morphemes, you need the advertising budget of
a gigantic global corporation to imbue them with
meaning and get people to remember them.
While they don't carry any direct negative messages,
such names do cast a cold, sanitized persona.
These are names with no potential marketing energy -they are image-free and emotionally void.

2) Poetically constructed names that are based on rhythm
and the experience of saying them. Examples: Snapple,
Oreo, Google, Kleenex.
The upside:
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They breeze through the trademark process.
Easy domain name acquisition.
By design, the target audience likes saying these
names, which helps propel and saturate them
throughout the target audience.
Highly memorable.
Emotionally engaging.
They are rich with potential marketing energy.

The downside:
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Tougher for a marketing department to get corporate
approval for. When making a case for a name based
on things like "fun to say, memorable, viral, and
emotionally engaging," you need to present a solid,
quantifiable case. Igor can show you how.

3. Experiential Product & Corporate Names
Experiential names offer a direct connection to something real, to a
part of direct human experience. They rise above descriptive names
because their message is more about the experience than the task.
For instance, in the web portal space, descriptive product names
once included Infoseek, GoTo, FindWhat, AllTheWeb, etc.
Experiential names of web portals include such product names as
Explorer, Magellan, Navigator, and Safari.
The upside:
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These names make sense to the consumer.
They map to the consumer's experience with the company or
product.
Because they require little explanation, experiential names
are easily approved in a corporate process.
They work best for products within a brand strategy
designed to accumulate brand equity for both the company
and the product.
Experiential company and product names are most effective
for the early entrants in a business sector, becoming less
effective for later adopters.

The downside:
•

•
•

•

Because they are so intuitive, experiential names are
embraced across many industries with high frequency,
making them harder to trademark.
These are names that tend to be historically common in the
branding world.
Their over-usage makes them less effective in the long run.
For instance, while Explorer, Navigator and Safari are web
portal names, they are also the names of SUVs.
The similarity in tone of these names across an industry is
indicative of similarities in positioning. As web portal names,
Explorer, Navigator, Safari and Magellan are all saying
exactly the same things in exactly the same ways to exactly
the same people. Consequently, they aren't pulling any
weight when it comes to differentiating a brand.

4. Evocative Product & Company Names
One important way that evocative names differ from others is that
they evoke the positioning of a company or product, rather than
describing a function or a direct experience.
Continuing with more examples of web portal company names:
InfoSeek, LookSmart = functional
Explorer, Navigator = experiential
Yahoo / Bing / Google = positioning (Evocative)
From the ride share sector:
RideCharge= functional
Lyft / Curb = experiential
Uber = positioning (Evocative)
From the airline sector:
Trans World Airlines = functional
United = experiential
Virgin = positioning (Evocative)
and finally, from the computer industry:
Digital Equipment = functional
Gateway = experiential
Apple = positioning (Evocative)

The upside:
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•
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A rare type of name, making it a powerful differentiator.
Nonlinear and multidimensional, making it deeply engaging.
Helps create a brand image that is bigger than the goods
and services a company offers.
Trademark process is better than average.
When created in sync with positioning, it is a branding force
that can dominate an industry.

The downside:
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When created out of sync with brand positioning, it's an ugly
mess.
Because evocative product and company names are created
to compliment positioning rather than goods and services,
they are the toughest type of names to get corporate
approval for, being a bit of an abstraction for those outside
the marketing department.

Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis is an essential early step in any naming
process. How are your competitors positioning themselves? What
types of names are common among them? Are their names
projecting a similar attitude? Do their similarities offer you a huge
opportunity to stand out from the crowd? How does your business or
product differ from the competition? How can a name help you define
or redefine your brand? Can you change and own the conversation in
your industry? Should you?
Quantifying the tone and strength of competitive company names or
product names is an empowering foundation for any naming project.
Creating such a document helps your naming team decide where
they need to go with the positioning, branding and naming of your
company or product. It also keeps the naming process focused on
creating a name that is a powerful marketing asset, one that works
overtime for your brand and against your competitors.
We display the results of a given sector of names in the form of
taxonomy charts.

Name Taxonomy Charts
We developed the name taxonomy format to bring an elegant
simplicity to a complex set of intertwined naming elements. It keeps
the process focused on the competitive aspect, allows you to quantify
both the negative and positive attributes of each name under
consideration, sets a high standard for you to meet, and gives
everyone involved a clean and easy framework in which navigate the
process
Women’s Yoga Wear Competitive Taxonomy
FUNCTIONAL

INVENTED

Navel

-1

EVOCATIVE

lululemon

Sweaty Betty

Lucy

Yoga Smoga

EXPERIENTIAL

Tonic

Teeki
Onzie

Electric Yoga

Lorna Jane

Zella
Alo

Prana
Mika
Freya

WELOVE
Threads for
Thought

Lolë
Solow
Zobha

Athleta

Spilts59

Beyond Yoga

-1

Airline Competitive Taxonomy
FUNCTIONAL

INVENTED

EXPERIENTIAL

5
4

Virgin

Ted
Jazz

Hooters
Aloha
Olympic

Go
Zip

Song
Frontier

Tower Air

JetBlue

Qantas*

EVOCATIVE

Alitalia

Vanguard

Midway
Trans World
Pan American
Delta
Continental
American
Alaska
AeroMexico
Air France
British Airways

United

-1

Northwest
Southwest
U.S. Airways
Eastern
America West
World Airways

-1

-2

Express Jet
ValueJet
AirJet
EasyJet

-2

Work Flow/Project Management
FUNCTIONAL

INVENTED

EXPERIENTIAL

Basecamp

EVOCATIVE

Slack

Hive
4

5pm

Davinci

Merlin
Odoo
3

Podio

Redbooth
Daylite
Huddle

Pulse

Goplan
Asana
Blazedesk
Avaza
2

Harvest
Mingle

Bitrix24

Acunote

BeeCanvas

24sevenoffice

Attask

Hyperoffice

Feng Office
OrangeScrum
Mavenlink

AceProject
Easy Projects
Liquidplanner
Project Bubble
Project Cloud
Project Insight
ProjectManager.com
ProjectOpen
0

Projectplace
ProTasker
TeamWork Live
Teamwork Projects
Teamwork.com
ProWorkflow
ProWorkflow
Work by Planbox
Workbook

Accelo
Acheivelt
Advanseez

Gemini
0

WORKetc
WorkflowMax
Workfront
Workgroups DaVinci
WorkOtter
Workspace
WorkZone
Workzone
MS project

Access FocalPoint

Aceicon EPM

AchievePlanner

Acentrix

Action Item Manager

Celoxis

Binfire

Active Collab

Clarizen

Brightpod

Clientspot

Trello

Deskaway

SUV Competitive Taxonomy
This chart of SUV names reveals a singular positioning strategy that permeates
most of the brand names in this industry, resulting in the bulk of these names
being assigned low marks on this scale. It's not that the names themselves are
poor. Rather, it's because the names don't help to differentiate one vehicle from
another; many of them are variations on the same theme (rugged, outdoorsy)
and not pulling any marketing weight. Why does Suburban rate an elevated
position? Because it's the most refreshingly different and honest name in the
Experiential category.

FUNCTIONAL
5

INVENTED

EXPERIENTIAL

EVOCATIVE

Jeep

5
Suburban

Hummer
Jackaroo
Jeepster

Xterra

Land Cruiser
Overland
Range Rover
Pathfinder
TrailBlazer
Travelall

-1

4Runner
Rav4

Element

Amigo
Aviator
Sidekick

Avalanche
Cayenne
Safari

Unimog

Blazer
Discovery
Defender
Escape
Excursion
Expedition
Explorer
Forester
Freelander
Mountaineer
Navigator
Scout
Tracker
Trooper
Wrangler

Armada
Frontier
Highlander
Matrix
Passport
Samurai
Silverado
Tundra
Typhoon

Grand Vitara
Korando

Envoy
Liberty
Rendezvous
Tribute

Aztek
Bordeux
Bronco
Cherokee

-1

Comanche
Durango
Kahuna
Montana
Montero
Murano
Navaho
Rainier
Rodeo
Santa Fe
Sequoia
Sonoma
Sorento
Tacoma
Tahoe
Touareg
Yukon

-2

CR-V
EVX
EX
LX 470
MDX
ML55
QX4
SLX
SRX
X5
XC90
XL-7

Terracross
VehiCROSS

Bravada
Escalade
Sportage

Axiom

FUNCTIONAL

INVENTED

EXPERIENTIAL

EVOCATIVE

-2

NAMING TOOLS
Naming Process Filters – Evocative Names
One of the keys to successful company and product naming is
understanding exactly how your audience will interact with a new
name. Creating a filter that evaluates names in the same way that
your target market will is essential to both creating the best name
possible and to getting that name approved and implemented by your
company. Since an evocative name is one of the toughest to develop
and obtain buy-in for, we've detailed one of the necessary filters here.
The biggest challenge that evocative names face in surviving a
naming exercise is the fact that they portray the positioning of a
company or product rather than the goods and services or the
experience of those goods and services. Unless everyone
understands the positioning and the correlation between it and an
evocative name, this is the type of feedback that evocative names will
generate:

Slack
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In business, Slack means “characterized by a lack of work or
activity; quiet”
A Slacker is someone who works as little as possible. A terrible
message for our target audience
Slack means slow, sluggish, or indolent, not active or busy; dull;
not brisk. Moving very slowly, as the tide, wind, or water.
Neglect, reduce, tardy

lululemon
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We are an upscale brand for women.
lululemon sounds like a character from a 3-year olds’ picture
book: “lululemon and her best friends annabanana and
sallystrawberry were climbing Gumdrop Hill, when suddenly
from behind a rainbow the queen of the unicorns appeared…”

Virgin Air
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•
•
•

Says "we're new at this"
Public wants airlines to be experienced, safe and professional
Investors won’t take us seriously
Religious people will be offended

Hotwire
•
•

It has one meaning, “to steal a car!”
Crime is the last thing we need to be associated with

Yahoo!
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•
•

Yahoo!! It's Mountain Dew!
Yoohoo! It’s a chocolate drink in a can!
Nobody will take stock quotes and world news seriously from a
bunch of "Yahoos"

Oracle
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Unscientific
Unreliable
Only foretold death and destruction
Only fools put their faith in an Oracle
Sounds like "orifice" – people will make fun of us

Clearly, the public doesn't think about names in this fashion, but
internal naming committees almost always do. Getting a committee to
acknowledge this difference and to interact as the public does is step
one.

Having the naming committee evaluate evocative names based on
their positioning is the next step:
Virgin
• Positioning: different, confident, exciting, alive, human,
provocative, fun. The innovative name forces people to create a
separate box in their head to put it in.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality,
Deep Well.
Oracle
• Positioning: different, confident, superhuman, evocative,
powerful, forward thinking.
• Qualities: Self-propelling, Connects Emotionally, Personality,
Deep Well.
Slack

• Positioning: naming the problem we solve!
• Qualities: confident, different, focused on solving the target’s
problem.
Hotwire

• Positioning: a travel hack, exciting, fun. (Hotwiring a car is a
hack, that’s why this name works)
• Qualities: Exciting, different, memorable, viral

Name Evaluation
When considering potential names for your company, product or
service, it is vital that the process be kept as objective as possible,
and that subjective personal responses to names, such as "I like it" or
I don't like it" or "I don't like it because it reminds me of an old
girlfriend/boyfriend" are exactly that – subjective and personal, and
have no bearing on whether or not a potential name will actually work
in the marketplace as a powerful brand that supports all your
positioning goals.

All well and good, but clients often ask us to be more specific, to
explain objectively just what makes a name work. With that in mind,
we created a straightforward way to dissect potential names into the
following nine categories to make it easier to understand why name
work or don't work, and to more easily weigh the pros and cons of
one name versus another:
Appearance – Simply how the name looks as a visual signifier, in a
logo, an ad, on a billboard, etc. The name will always be seen in
context, but it will be seen, so looks are important.
Distinctive – How differentiated is a given name from its competition.
Being distinctive is only one element that goes into making a name
memorable, but it is a required element, since if a name is not distinct
from a sea of similar names it will not be memorable. It’s important,
when judging distinctiveness, to always consider the name in the
context of the product it will serve, and among the competition it will
spar with for the consumer’s attention.
Depth – Layer upon layer of meaning and association. Names with
great depth never reveal all they have to offer all at once, but keep
surprising you with new ideas.
Energy – How vital and full of life is the name? Does it have buzz?
Can it carry an ad campaign on its shoulders? Is it a force to be
reckoned with? These are all aspects of a name’s energy level.
Humanity – A measure of a name’s warmth, its "humanness," as
opposed to names that are cold, clinical, unemotional. Another –
though not foolproof – way to think about this category is to imagine
each of the names as a nickname for one of your children.
Positioning – How relevant the name is to the positioning of the
product or company being named, the service offered, or to the
industry served. Further, how many relevant messages does the
name map to?
Sound – Again, while always existing in a context of some sort or
another, the name WILL be heard, in radio or television commercials,
being presented at a trade show, or simply being discussed in a
cocktail party conversation. Sound is twofold – not only how a name

sounds, but how easily it is spoken by those who matter most: the
potential customer. Word of mouth is a big part of the marketing of a
company, product or service with a great name, but if people aren’t
comfortable saying the name, the word won’t get out.
"33" – The force of brand magic, and the word-of-mouth buzz that a
name is likely to generate. Refers to the mysterious "33" printed on
the back of Rolling Rock beer bottles from decades that everybody
talks about because nobody is really sure what it means. "33" is that
certain something that makes people lean forward and want to learn
more about a brand, and to want to share the brand with others. The
"33" angle is different for each name.
Trademark – As in the ugly, meat hook reality of trademark
availability. Scoring is easy here, as there are only three options, and
nothing is subjective: 10 = likely available for trademark; 5 = may be
available for trademark; and 0 = not likely available for trademark. All
of the names on this list have been prescreened and have been
deemed "likely" for trademark registration.

Here is a blank chart you can use as an exercise to evaluate names
you are considering for your own project and see how well they
support the positioning of your brand. Be sure to add some of your
most successful competitors to this list, so you can accurately gauge
how well your names can compete in the marketplace. Assign up to
10 points in each of the nine categories; the more points, the better
(90 maximum total points):

Studies in Naming
How to Create Compound Names Like Instagram, Snapchat & Airport
Instagram and Snapchat are identical constructions. Each simply substitutes new
words from an accepted utility name: Instant Message. Insta & Snap are
synonyms for Instant, and Gram & Chat are substitutes for Message.
Since Instant Message is already a universally adopted name, you know that
Instagram and Snapchat will be accepted as well. If what you’re naming doesn’t
map to a two-word generic, break it down into one first.
You can do this by re-purposing an unrelated, well-known compound word, as in
Apple’s Wi-Fi base station being called “Airport” – a port accessed through the
air. It’s easy to remember and readily embraced because everyone knows the
word Airport already.
Proposing a name like Airport to a committee will be met with immediate
pushback such as, “Everyone hates the experience of an airport” or, “Last time I
was there they cancelled my flight, I had to sleep on the floor and I missed my
child’s birthday” or “The first thing I think of is stress, long lines and bad service”as if any of this will make the name less successful, which of course it doesn’t.
As soon as the name Airport is applied to a Wi-Fi device the primary definition
disappears, your audience puts the clever double meaning together in their
heads in an “aha!” moment, and they smile at the warmth & humanity you’ve
brought to the game. Airport contains all of the ingredients of an unforgettable,
best of breed name.
Because this simple concept is inherently difficult for corporations, names like
Airport are rare indeed

What makes “Hotwire” & “Pandora” Powerful Names?
To understand why they work so well, you have to get literal for a moment:
Hotwire = “to steal a car”
Pandora = “unleashed plagues, diseases & all the evils of mankind”
These types of meanings will get a name dismissed ASAP by a naming
committee – a committee that would have been wrong to dismiss these names,
obviously.
Consumers don’t attribute these literal, negative qualities to the companies who
use Hotwire & Pandora as their company names (you don’t, do you?). But
naming committees will almost always believe they will. It’s essential to
understand that your target audience does not interpret names literally – if they
did names like Slack, Virgin, lululemon, Pandora, Hotwire, Yahoo, Google & Gap
would be D.O.A.
In each case the name is a metaphor for something about the company.
Hotwiring a car is a “hack”, Hotwire positions the site as a travel hack – a way
around high prices. Pandora Radio is a marketplace, positioned metaphorically
as a “box full of intrigue”.
When juxtaposed in line with the company’s positioning, the names simply
become interesting – they have personality. They demonstrate confidence and
uniqueness. Metaphorically re-purposing the negative is what makes them so
positive.
The names are provocative, differentiating and memorable.
Don’t fear the Negative – well executed, it’s a Positive.

Lost at sea
The most common mistake in naming is choosing a name that gets lost in the
sea of competitive sound-alikes. We’ve cobbled together a list of clothing brand
names that contain the word “Bay”, with a few “Harbor” names thrown in for
spice.
“Harbor Bay” wins the coveted Gold Ridicule for including both words.
This mistake is easily avoided by creating a Competitive Taxonomy prior to
naming:
Aqua Bay
Back Bay
Baja Bay
Banana Bay
Bantry Bay
Bay City
Bay Reef
Bay Trading
Beach Bay
Bermuda Bay
Bikini Bay
Billion Bay
Bimini Bay
Blackwater Bay
Blubay
Brittany Bay
Buckley Bay
Buffalo Bay
Burk’s Bay
Capstan Bay
Chileno Bay
Coral Bay
Eastbay
Eccobay
Emerald Bay
English Bay
Falcon Bay
Ginger Bay
Hampton Bay
Harbor Bay
Highland Bay
Inner Harbor

Jamaica Bay
Kahuna Bay
Kips Bay
Kylani Bay
Latigo Bay
Lawton Harbor
Lunada Bay
Madison Bay
Mango Bay
Marino Bay
Mission Bay
Misty Harbor
Monterey Bay
Moonlight Bay
Orca Bay
Paradise Bay
Parrot Bay
Peppermint Bay
Peregrine Bay
Sag Harbor
Solar Bay
South Bay
St. John’s Bay
Sterling Bay
SunBay
Thornton Bay
Thunder Bay
Union Bay
Victoria Bay
Willow Bay
Yucatan Bay

Questions? We’re here to help.

(415) 415 384-8877
Contact@IgorInternational.com
Igor
3020 Bridgeway
Suite 360
Sausalito, CA 94965

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