Naming Agency

Your brand story is the culmination of a journey of discovery that includes competencies, values, mission, and promise. The name you choose must embody all of those things while remaining flexible enough to change with the times and with your business. At TOP, we have a four step creation process and structure our thinking by brainstorming names in four distinctive categories: descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary, and coined. The result are names that serve as the perfect articulation of a brand’s core mission, values, promise and competencies.

Your brand name must work across multiple channels in varied formats for a diverse audience. We examine how users and stakeholders will engage with and share your brand, remaining consistent across all of the myriad ways the brand name will be shared. We develop dozens of naming options and work with you, your stakeholders, and focus groups of prospective customers to determine the best recommendation.

Some of our services include:

• Brand Strategy
• Related and Competitive Brand Review
• Brand Story Development
• Domain Purchasing and Registration
• Trademark research

When building a brand name, it is critical to consider more than just the kind of business you’re describing but the key audiences and gatekeepers to these audiences. A brand name needs to express the core competencies, values, mission, and promise of a brand in the language that your customers will understand and trust. We test and learn naming options across all customer personas to get at the name that meets these criteria the best.

The name of your company has to tell a whole story with one word. We see most brand names falling into one of four categories: descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary, or coined. Each of these categories has its distinct definition. Descriptive names viscerally and directly describe your core product or service. It’s the “does what it says on the tin” category. Suggestive and arbitrary names are a little more nebulous. Suggestive names don’t directly describe what your brand does, but it implies it. Arbitrary names don’t even imply, they simply capture the mood or feel of your product or service. Finally, a coined name are combinations of core value proposition words.

We determine the right naming convention by moving sequentially through several stages. We start with creating “mood boards” based on the brand’s strategic positioning. Then we consider phrasing and wording that complement the visuals and incorporate the brand’s value propositions. Finally, we brainstorm potential candidates in each of the four categories to ultimately create a short list that fits all of the criteria.