Sound symbolism, phonetic breakdowns, and case studies — written for founders who want a name that's defensible, memorable, and impossible to confuse with anyone else in the category.
Some names are easier to pull from memory because they break their category's pattern and because the mind retrieves real words more reliably than invented ones.
Worth it gets argued against the sticker price. A name is a liability you carry for years, and the real cost is set later. Here is the buyer-side math.
The naming mistakes that cost the most pass on launch day and send the bill months later. Here is each one, and the cheap check that catches it first.
Run 5,000 DTC names through a phonetic sieve and one average name falls out. It does not exist, and it would sit unnoticed on any shelf. Here is the read.
A name is worth paying to fix only once it turns load-bearing. Six honest signs to check whether yours has crossed that line.
Most names that fail were not bad names. They passed every test at launch and broke later, in one of four ways. Each mode, and the signal that predicts it.
Processing fluency is how easily a name moves through the mind, and the mind quietly trusts what moves easily. The science, and the levers that set it.
An invented word that means nothing became a verb for a category. The reason is in the sound, three soft L sounds, a doubled lu, and a name effortless to say.
Three real ways to get a brand name, and the right one depends less on your budget than on the stage your brand is at. An honest guide, including the option most founders never see.
A single brand name can cost nothing or a quarter of a million dollars. Here is the honest map of every rung, what each one actually buys, and the option the other guides leave off.
Most naming advice says invent a word. Across 5,018 real direct-to-consumer brand names, only about a quarter are, and the most common move is borrowing a word that already exists.
Most guides hand you the same loop, generate a long list and pick the one you like. Here is the full naming process, and the three steps that loop leaves out.