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Why Doesn’t Every Brand Have a Great Name?

Text title image: In Praise of Great Names over colorful background text that reads "great names"

Great brand names are not a given. Very few just happen. They have to be created, advocated, debated, and pushed through resistance. Great names tend to polarize naming committees adept at presenting powerful, persuasive arguments against them.

These are some primary challenges as to why every brand doesn’t have an outstanding name. Let’s explore some of these challenges more in depth. Behind each one, there’s also an opportunity (along with practical advice) to help bring great names into the world.

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Evocative Names Make the Most Powerful Brand Names

Evocative brand names

Your company or product name is the first and most elemental point of audience contact with your brand. In many respects, your name is the brand. It sets the tone. It’s the handshake, the introduction, the first impression (formed within a matter of seconds) for everything your brand is about.

Your name is the cornerstone of your entire brand identity to follow — logo, tagline, advertising, website, etc. That’s why it’s vital to get it right. And in our experience, evocative product and company names pack the most powerful brand punch.

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Naming made-up, coined, invented brand names

Plato - invented names

Plato, you saucy philosopher, you really get us namers, don’t you? We don’t usually wax Socratic here at Zinzin, but it warms our creative hearts to know that way back in 375 BC a great thinker understood the connection between creative invention and great need. In his famous dialogue, The Republic, Plato wrote, “Our need will be the real creator” — a proverb more widely known today as “Necessity is the mother of invention”…or of invented brand names, as this case may be.

What’s an invented name?

An invented name falls under the category of brand names that includes purely made-up, morphemic mash-up, unknown foreign words, and abstract names with no inherent meaning. Some call them fabricated or newly coined. At their best, invented names can be poetic, rhythmic, and ripe for investing with the soul of a brand (think Google). On the other hand, bad invented names, often suffering from “morpheme addiction,” litter the cultural landscape, and should serve as a cautionary tale when going this route.

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Tech Company Naming: Get Your SaaS in Gear 

C'mon get SasSsy

At Zinzin, we love to name drop. Especially, when it’s a name we created for our fabulous client, Antimatter, doing sassy new things in the world of software as a service (SaaS).

That’s right; we said it: sassy.

Let’s take a look at two seemingly unconnected dots: the B2B SaaS infrastructure company, Antimatter, and why the word “sassy” is more than our attempt at being cute with SaaS. Zinzin believes both characteristics — serious and sassy — can successfully co-exist in a name when it maps true to its brand positioning.

Aside: We freely admit that we love to play with language. It’s part of Zinzin’s naming process. And it’s often how Zinzin brains make the most unlikely creative connections for our clients.

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Naming Agencies: A Guide for Evaluating Them

Naming Agencies: A Guide for Evaluating Them
We’ve put together this handy guide for evaluating naming agencies, with everything you need to know to help you choose the perfect agency. Stephen King wrote, “The scariest moment in writing is just before you start.” For many companies, the prospect of hiring a naming agency is filled with nearly as much uncertainty as the process of naming itself. We want you to feel confident with your selection of a naming agency, so we’ve put together this handy guide. Here are a few things to consider when considering naming agencies:

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New IFG grapes launched — named by Zinzin

let there be grapes

Our fabulous client, International Fruit Genetics (IFG), the renowned and innovative fruit breeder that changed the way consumers and retailers think of grapes, has launched the first seven of many new grapes Zinzin has named for them. Unlike typical grape-naming systems that simply reflect seasons or color, Zinzin helped IFG create a new and energizing naming architecture that depicts the essence of these new IFG-bred varieties that explode with tropical flavors, crunch like an apple, or elegantly improve older varieties that deserve some revitalization.

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