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Five Methods to “Brandify” a Name

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Five Methods to “Brandify” a Name

Week 88 of Founding Typogram

wentin
Jun 16, 2023
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Five Methods to “Brandify” a Name

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AI has changed my life for the better. I felt much stronger as a developer, and the unfamiliar task doesn’t scare me anymore because I always have someone to turn to and a place to begin. As I am more familiarized with OpenAI API, I am planning to tackle an idea that is long overdue, a workshop tool to brainstorm a brand name! The gist of the workshop process is described in Four Steps to Name Your Brand:

  1. Write down seed words based on your business idea

  2. Make these words unique and ownable as a brand name using different methods

  3. Due diligence

  4. Create a scoring rubric and rank these brand names. 

And the part I plan to incorporate AI is Step 2, where the magical transformation happens — a common word directly taken from a dictionary transforms into a memorable, impressive, one-of-a-kind brand name using one of my five methods. Before I dive into the Brand Name Workshop tool, I would love to hear your opinion on these following methods; it may steer my development into new, exciting directions! 

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Method 1: transform the noun into an adjective, adverb or verb, and vice versa.

We can add adjective or adverb suffixes to make a new word out of the noun. It is more ownable as a brand since the word doesn’t exist in the dictionary. Because it is based on a real word and standard grammar rules, it is easy to piece together what it means and remember how to spell it. 

Examples: Grammarly, Typely, Typefully, Contentful, Shopify, Spotify

List of Adj. and Adv. Suffixes

The opposite can also be done, although less common — add noun suffixes to transform an adjective into a noun. 

Example: Betterment

List of Noun Suffixes

Method 2: remove “non-essential” letters in the word, such as vowels.

This method is so widely used that it has become a trend! Some vowel letters, especially the letter ‘e’, is very insignificant in terms of pronunciation, so why not drop them? The minimalist approach transforms an everyday word into a unique brand name without changing the pronunciation (for the most part). 

Example: Flickr, Rdio, Tumblr, Scribd, Pixlr, GVE, 


Method 3: Mis-spell the word, such as spell c with k or q, ph with f, i with y, s with z, etc.

Similar to dropping the vowel, the idea behind this method is also to alter the spelling without changing the pronunciation. 

Example: Lyft, Disqus


Method 4: Combine two words

While one word from a dictionary may not be ownable, joining two together could be unique enough to become ownable. You can join a verb and a noun, an adjective and a noun, or just two nouns. This method is the most commonly used.

Example: Facebook, Paypal, Skyscanner, Priceline, Firebase, Coinbase, Wealthfront, Home Depot, Instant Pot


Method 5: Combine a partial word (a word root) and a word

Similar to combining two words, this method play around joining two name ideas together, but with a twist. Incorporating a partial word, usually a word root, like -gram or insta-, allows us to present two ideas in a much shorter format. 

For the longest time, I thought Instant Pot was called InstaPot because the latter is shorter, punchier, and conveys the same meaning — a pot that cooks instantly. 

Example: Instagram, Instabase, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Netflix, Skype

Hear from You

Do you see other patterns to convert a common everyday word into a unique brand-worthy name? Let me know. I am collecting more and hopefully making them into a free workshop tool for new entrepreneurs. 

❧

See you next week! If you have friends who are interested in founding startups, please consider sharing my newsletter with them!

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