I MAKE NAMES MAKE SENSE.

From international agencies to local businesses, I help brands understand their linguistic landscape to craft memorable and strategic names, naming systems, and other conceptual assets.

FOR NAMING AGENCIES

FOR FOUNDERS AND BRAND MANAGERS

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PS212 is an all-star naming agency for the Fortune 50 based in San Francisco and New York, and Senior Partner Nik Contis has been super gracious in giving me lots of good advice and insight as I've developed my naming practice.

I recently worked with the PS212 team on a piece about the role of metaphor in naming for product tiering, a part of naming with much less public awareness.

The big bold naming one-offs for new startups or hero product launches can be fun and exciting -- but much of the day to day work of naming development is in the nitty gritty of nomenclature and product architecture. Systems of names that have to fit a bunch of different needs and parameters all at the same time.

You can read the piece at PS212's website here.

INSIGHTS DEEP AND WIDE

The best return on your naming investment will always come from great research and analysis. I do the deep dives and help you see verbal branding patterns and opportunities you won't get otherwise.

My free naming guides and category analyses have been used by namers and brand strategists to guide client decision making, find new techniques for sticky memorability, and assess the distinctiveness of critical brand assets. Check them out here, and see what other brand experts have to say:

"I love that you not only analyzed what's out there, but also put forth whitespace suggestions. This report is wildly relevant to a current project for me - kismet."

"Thank you! I'm in the middle of a naming project and I was just considering this point. Now my direction is clear!"

"THIS is what I’m talking about. The key — one of them anyway — to develop great names en masse is to identify effective linguistic patterns that support a naming objective and discover candidates that fit the pattern. Very nice scholarship, John! 🙌🏼 🙌🏼 🙌🏼"

LET'S CHAT

Great naming is about directing language change.

Picking a name for a brand means creating a new set of connections by combining existing ones.

Yes, you likely want names that are "bold", "exciting", "innovative", or whatever other positive adjective you want to use.

But how do you actually do that?

You have to chart the existing language -- in your market, and in the wider culture -- so you know which creative development is actually going to click.

A good naming strategy isn't about getting stoked in workshops, it's about designing brand language that charts the likely next steps in consumer culture, and takes the reigns to your brand's advantage.

LET'S TALK NAMING DETAILS