The Joy of Naming Things
Oh! It’s sweet. Like sunshine streaming in the windows on a Sunday morning.
Soft and joyful: This is how it feels to give something a name.
To name (v.) is to christen the exterior of identity. To signal. To create, or even, perhaps perpetuate. It's like when people say, "give me a sign."
The name!
The first thing you say, all over the world, after you point to yourself. Then, you point to the other person, and you know that they will say their name, too. This exchange—so fundamental we barely notice it—is where everything begins. Every relationship, every transaction, every moment of recognition.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, the weight and lightness of names, because I spend my days helping people find the right words for the things that matter to them. It's strange work, like ferrying ideas across a river. One one shore, silence. The other, utterance.
How do you choose a name? People with children and puppies have their own ideas, and they're usually pretty good at it. There's something natural about naming the things we love, it doesn't require strategy meetings or competitive analysis. You look at the face, you feel the personality, and you just know.
Right after I was born, my parents looked at me and went, “She doesn’t look like a Rachel.” Chelsea was a gut decision, a last-minute pivot. And it worked out fine(!) and its got a nice ring to it.
So, some names in our lives are like that. But business names—project names, company names, the names we give to things we're trying to sell or explain or build—these require a different kind of attention and process. For me, there are two simple, sometimes competing notions to consider:
What does it mean?
Do I like how it sounds?
The second might surprise you, but its no less important than the first. A name is given to be recited aloud. You shouldn't name a dog something you'd be embarrassed to call when it gets away from you at the park. The same is true with your business. So, try it out in a few different scenarios. Stay far from quirky, as things might not always be smooth sailing. Close your eyes, speak it, and then listen.
If you are not someone who speaks aloud often (like, really often) with others and very often to yourself (because for you language is far more about vocal cord vibration than grammar, and chuck the rules), then you are probably not great at naming things. You are probably good enough, which is an important distinction. You can do the most natural act, driven by affection and not strategy.
But unless you are obsessed with language, you might not consider that naming your next project is by default (for someone like me) a glorious, joy-filled exercise—a series of backflips through the incredible field that is all of human expression. This is why people who live on language, meaning, and sounds, should be at your table to guide you in branding.
Say More, You Say?
At the beginning of the year, I was working on a name for our new content studio. Jeremy Witt and I had a kickoff meeting where he shared with me his vision: "The Rhombus Factory." It was the perfect inspiration for what would become Say More. Playful, unique, and production-focused. We had some conversations, we did a card sort. I started researching the sounds of things. I pulled out my big-ass thesaurus. I drew lines between words like John Nash. I came up with PLOT MACHINE and SEQUENC. I tried to capture that same energy he was after—that sense of creative manufacturing, ideas becoming real things. I liked what they meant, but I didn’t love how they sounded out loud.
As part of the process I checked social media handles and available urls. I did the due diligence that no one sees but that has to happen if you want to avoid the heartbreak of falling in love with a name you can't actually have. Naming is part art and part science, the technical stuff behind the scenes makes the “magic” possible.
Then one night, as the deadline was looming (quite possibly the very next day), I was sitting around drinking wine with a friend, just talking about the project. They had an idea about something we were discussing, smart and worth exploring, and I said, reflexively, "Say more."
They kept talking, but I had stopped listening, because I knew deep down that we had solved it. An invitation, a request, a command. It was quirky but clear, the meaning was there. A production-focused content studio, what else was there to say. But what takes a name over the top is the right rhythm, which, when executed, becomes the impetus for reptition.
When it works, this is how it works: all that preparation, hours of deliberation and card sorts and digging into the purpose and goals and identity—that's what makes you ready to hear the perfect name when it seemingly “appears.” You don't break through to a great idea without doing all that hard work first. It feels effortless, weightless—so sometimes people try to skip immediately to the brainstorm, thinking that perfect names come from throwing darts at a wall. But, and I hate to break this to everyone, you really need a dartboard to do this well. After you've spent time absorbing what something is and what it wants to become, then it has a tendency to pop up. And, every time, to feel so obvious you can't believe you didn't see it immediately.
When I presented the options to Jeremy the next day, I included my carefully crafted alternatives. But there was only one real choice. I put it on the first slide and presentation took all of five minutes.
And so this is where the joy of naming comes from—not just the initial pleasure of playing with words, but the moment of recognition when I know I’ve found it. When I hear the name that was always waiting to be discovered.
Who Hears the Name?
Say More isn’t the perfect name for me, mind you or Jeremy. His was already Rhombus Factory. That question is answered by asking this one: Who do we want to say this name, and to repeat it to their friends? Who is our audience? Reductress. Tesla. YouTube. Bud. What do these word mean to them? Even more importantly, what will we do to make it mean something?
This is the difference between naming for love and doing branding. When you name your child, you hope, and then they fill in the rest. But when you name a business or a project, to really name it well, you must electrify it in your mind. Make it something you are fully experiencing before it comes alive. To do this, you may need to hire people who can visualize.
Consider this: Do you know what a color will look like painted on a wall?
If not, operators are standing by.
What about renaming? Rebranding? Or refreshing your brand?
The same questions apply:
Does our name have meaning?
Does it ask to be repeated?
Is it fun to say?
Does it make sense when we look at ourselves?
If the answers are yes, then keep it. If not, trash it and move on. Usually the answers are somewhere in the middle, and we can start there.
Naming brands is like titling essays that other people have been writing, sometimes for years. Giving something a good name requires an understanding of sales strategy, but also psychology, human nature, what's trending, and what (*rings a little bell*) just sounds right. And maybe even what makes something timeless. I’m not embarrassed to say that’s what I’m after.
How do you know what sounds right? Lots of listening. Even more than all that talking.
The best names come from a mix of strategy and conversation, and, like the story of my own name, staying open to surprise. So, when you survey your products, service lines, and your business, ask yourself: What's in a name? What story does it tell before you even get a chance to explain? What does it invite people to expect, to hope for, to remember?
If you're not sure, we can help you. Would you be here if you weren't looking for a truly creative partner to help you with your branding? Someone who understands that naming is fundamentally about joy—that sweet, sunshine streaming in the windows kind of joy that comes from finding exactly the right words.
Want to talk about branding, rebranding, and everything in between?
Contact us to start the conversation.