Guide

Choosing a name for a child, or even understanding the history behind your own, brings you face to face with an undeniable truth: names are never just arbitrary combinations of vowels and consonants. When you sit down with a blank piece of paper trying to choose a name, you quickly realize you are not merely…

About fifteen years ago, a client sat across my conference desk clutching a legal pad filled with thirty different prospective company names. He had spent three agonizing months testing complex, Latin-derived corporate titles that sounded like multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, yet not a single investor or customer could remember what his startup was called twenty minutes…

A couple walked into my naming studio about twelve years ago, completely exhausted and carrying two completely different baby name lists. The mother wanted something gentle, airy, and bright like “Celia” or “Fiona,” while the father insisted on something that felt solid, grounded, and deep like “Bruno” or “Marcus.” Neither of them could explain why…

Years ago, a good friend called me into his workshop when he was struggling to name his custom woodworking business. He had narrowed his list down to two choices: “Valen” and “Vark.” Both names had one or two syllables, both started with the exact same initial letter, and both sounded brief. Yet every person he…

Over the past twenty years sitting in branding meetings and baby-naming brainstorms, I have watched people react to names on paper before they ever see the person or product behind them. Put the name “Kellan” next to “Julian” or “Garrett” next to “Liam,” and almost everyone in the room will assign more immediate physical toughness…

A few years ago, I sat in a conference room with a startup founder who was dead set on naming his new financial technology company a tongue-twisting, six-syllable pseudo-Latin mashup. He believed it sounded sophisticated, intelligent, and visionary. Two months later, during their initial beta rollout, potential investors kept fumbling the name, customers refused to…

If you are stuck staring at a whiteboard filled with scribbled words, wondering why some options sound punchy while others fall flat on their face, the answer usually comes down to acoustic physics: syllable count. When naming a business, a product, or a brand, the number of beats in your name directly controls how fast…

At a bustling industry mixer some years back, I was introduced to over twenty people in the span of an hour. By the time I walked out to the parking lot, almost every elaborate name had evaporated from my head, except for three: Max, Leo, and Ray. Their names stuck effortlessly while multi-syllable, tongue-twisting names…

A few years ago, I sat on a hiring panel reviewing stacks of applicant portfolios. Before we ever looked at a single portfolio, read a cover letter, or heard someone speak, our eyes caught the first line at the top of every resume: their name. In less than a second, everyone in that room had…

Years ago, while working on a brand redesign for a heavy engineering firm, the leadership team brought me two final name candidates. One option was soft and flowing with airy vowels, while the other was short, angular, and built with hard, striking consonants. When we tested both names across rooms of industry buyers, the second…