A powerful name is the product of a powerful positioning strategy.

The key is to find a fresh way into the minds of your customers, redefine and own the conversation in your space, and engage people on as many levels as possible.

Here's what happens when we put these principles into practice:

Expert Brand Naming Advice.

Check out the other Naming Agencies.

Consider the names of naming agencies:

ABC Name Bank Agencies
Brighter Naming Agency
Moore Names Agency
Name Development Agency
Name Evolution Agency
Name Generator
Name-It
Name Lab Agency
Name One
Name Pharm
Name Quest
Name Razor
Name Sale
Name Sharks
Name-Shop
Name Stormers
Name Tag
Name Trade
Namebase
Names-n-Brands
Nameworks
NameWorks
Naming Systems
Naming Toolbox
Naming Workshop
Namington
Namix

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.com
Brand Vista
CoreBrand
iBrand
Better Branding
The Brand Company

The Process

Process Overview
Competitive Analysis
Brand Positioning
Name Development
Trademark
Naming Tools

The Agency Names of Naming Agencies

A foundational element of any naming project is to thoroughly analyze the names of the competition. We plot the results on a taxonomy chart, like the competitive name analysis of naming firms below.

This helps everyone involved understand the competitive landscape, to see which words & ideas are overused, and to have a crystal-clear picture of where the opportunities are.

It's a vital step that's usually overlooked, even when naming agencies name themselves.

Are we biased in our opinion? Absolutely. We strongly believe that the name a naming agency names itself is a clue to the kinds of company names they believe in. And if a naming agency cannot manage to give itself a distinctive, memorable name that sets itself apart from the slew of competitors you see below, a company name that can evolve into a strong brand within the industry and come to represent more than just the goods and services being offered, how can they possibly convince others that what they fail to do in their own naming agency name they can somehow magically do for their clients?

	FUNCTIONAL	INVENTED	EXPERIENTIAL	EVOCATIVE
	FUNCTIONAL	INVENTED	EXPERIENTIAL	EVOCATIVE
5			A Hundred Monkeys	Igor	5
4					4
3					3
2			Idiom Lexicon Metaphor	WildOutWest (WOW)	2
1			Catchword Eat My Words Word for Word Operative Words WhereWords Good Characters	Tungsten	1
0	Applebaum Addison Ashton Brand Group Hayden Group Landor Lippincott Mercer Master McNeil Rivkin & Associates Russell Mark Group Siegel & Gale Wolff Olins	Zinzin Tanj Cintara		Fresh Lemons	0
-1	Namewell Name Designer Name Development Name Evolution Name Generator NAME-IT NameLab Name One Name Pharm NameQuest Name Razor NameSale Name Sharks Name-Shop NameStormers Name Tag NameTrade Namebase NameWorks Naming Systems Naming Workshop Namington The Naming Group Strategic Name Development The Naming Company Wise Name ABC Name Bank Brighter Naming Moore Names	Namix Nomen Nomenon Nomina Nomino	Bizword Comspring Logoistic Macroworks Mnemonic	PS212 Red Peak Brains On Fire One Big Roach Wonsupona Evil Potatoes	-1
-2	Brand-DNA Brand A Brand 2.0 Brand Channel Brand Design Brand Doctors Brand Evolve Brand Evolution Brand Fidelity Brand Forward Brand Institute Brand Juice Brand Ladder Brand Link BrandMade Brand Maverick Brand Mechanics Brand Meta Brand People Brand Positioning Brand Salt Brandscape Brand Scope Brand Sequence Brand Slinger Brand Solutions Brand Spark Brand Vista CoreBrand Future Brand Independent Branding Interbrand Not Just Any Branding The Better Branding Company The Brand Company The Brand Consultancy Trading Brands			Blue Taco	-2

There are naming agencies, and then there's the Igor naming firm.

Brand Naming Expert

The Naming Agencies & Naming Firms

Brand Naming Tools

For complete strategies and tactics, see The Igor Naming Guide.

Name Taxonomy Charts

Accounting and Business Service Companies
Airline Names
Biotech / Pharmaceutical Names
The Company Names of Naming Companies
Computer Port Technology Names
Continuing Medical Education (CME) Names
Juice Names
Margarine Names
Music and Media Download Service Names
Search Engine, Browser and Web Portal Names
Social Network Names
Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) Names
Sweet Snack Food Names
Toothpaste Names
Your Names – Here is a blank name taxonomy chart you can print. Try plotting your competition's product or company names on this chart and see how they sort out.

Brand Naming Filters

Evocative Naming Filters – understanding positioning and evocative name creation
Name Evaluation – nine criteria for evaluating names under consideration
Theory of Negativity – the negative deconstruction of provocative names and why consumers never do it.

Studies in Brand Naming Firms

Allstream – the perils of overused language
Alphanumeric Car Naming – Mercedes' plethora of numbers
Avlimil – an unusual but effective brand positioning strategy
Better Naming Through Chemistry – naming and branding in the medical, biotech, and pharmaceutical industries
Chrysler Crossfire – seeing names from the consumer's point of view
IBM's T-Rex – code names vs. "official names"
Pepperidge Farm – a wonderful job of creating evocative product names
Roomba – a perfect made-up product name
Silk – great consumer product name creation in action

Studies in Branding

Juice Branding – Simply Orange, Tropicana and POM Wonderful
Verizon's Tagline – a positive negative
Yahoo! Personals: Believe – a tagline creates brand engagement
Yellow Freight – the friction between a color and a name creates engagement

News and Analysis

Naming Companies & Products

Functional / Descriptive Product and 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.

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.

Invented Names