We use names to identify with People, object and subjects. Brands names are basically the names that have become popular. To come up with is rather simple, if you want to name a baby all you have to do is to go to a baby names website and pick the one you like best, but making brand names are not only tough in practice but even tougher from a scientific point of view. Brand names are in fact scientifically made, coincidentally or not.

The Logical Definition of Brand Names:

Brand Name = Name + Brand Positioning + Strategy + Marketing

Naming:

No matter what your business is everybody needs to identify you some how. But just having a name is not enough, your name should be easy to read and understand; it also has to be memorable and friendly.

Unique names tend to be special since they are new words people have never heard before and any sort of definition you give to it has the tendency to stick. The biggest problem however is unique names tend to be easy to forget unless you have the resources and money to keep repeating it until it becomes a part of natural language. It's hard to come up with unique names, you can mash up a few alphabets together but names also have to make sense. Web 2.0 sites have exhausted the idea that a misspelled word is still a unique name, in my opinion if there is a spelling error in a name it just shows the dumbness of its creators. Flickr was a clever name because it was among the first but every other similar name that came after was really dumb and since the idea was no longer unique and clever it lost its appeal.

How to find a good name?

To find a good name first make a list of keywords. By keywords i mean words that mean want your name is trying to represent. Categorize each keyword into definition groups, so if you have a whole bunch of keywords but 5-6 of them basically mean "inventive" then create a group called "inventive" and put all the keywords associated with that meaning under that group. Next find as many COOL words that are also synonymous with "Inventive" by looking into thesaurus part of dictionary, also don't forget to look into other languages to find cool translations.

When you have lots of words that seem to be cool enough start the word play. Playing with words involves mixing up words that are in the same category or in the contrasting category, manipulating words, cutting words into pieces and matching them with other pieces from other words. The list goes on. The goal is to come up with at least 50 new words.

To make sure your new names are easy to read try to read them out loud your self and ask others to read it out loud as well. If you find that you have to correct others in pronunciation then there is something wrong with that name. Forget fixing up words at this point. you have lots of names to go through. The words that pass the "read" test move on to "understandable" test.

To see if your new name is understandable, ask people to see if they can guess what the each word suppose to mean. Better yet, ask them what is the first thing that comes into their mind. Narrow the list down to those words that convey the some what original meaning.

You list should be very short by now, i'm guessing we are down to about 5 to 10 from 50. You next goal should be to narrow it down to 3. Sometimes it's a matter of taste or a hunch, no matter how you decide to narrow down the list the important thing is that you as the new owner of the name can totally relate to them name.

When you have you top 3, it's time to do some more research. If your name is going to be a global player then it has to have safe meanings in all of the popular markets. I have my own way which is a proprietary way used in the industry and i can't disclose it yet, i can't bite the hand that is feeding me. But i will give you an example, There is a clothing company in Canada and it's called ROOTS, when the Olympics was held in Australia, ROOTS was the clothing sponsor for the Canadian Team, Little did they know in Australia ROOTS means having sex. The ROOTS name was ridiculed all over the world, it was a disaster for the brand name because it was opening locations in Europe and Australia and after what was thought to be a great investment ended up forcing the company to abandon its plans and invest in only North America.

Back to conclusion, After you've done your research on all your top 3 names then now is the time to pick one. But before you pick that 1 special name consider the following:

• make sure .com domain of that name is available
• finalize any changes to the alphabetical structure of the name
• search the trade marks database to make sure the name is available
• search google to see if anybody else is using the name and what are they using it for
• make sure the name has a clean, safe and trusting meaning

Now you have a name, good luck!

Brand Name = Name + Brand Positioning + Strategy + Marketing
 

Ultimate definition of branding is that "a brand is a promise" the process of branding is building promises!

Brands are not logos, they are not ads in magazines or billboards and they are not names. Brands aren't supposed to communicate a message but rather they try to keep a consistent voice. Brands are also not suppose to persuade, that's the job of advertising, but rather try to sympathize, connect, and help.

Brand is a promise!

Foundations of Branding

Most branding projects when they begin, they already have a name, they also have productions associated with it and some are already established companies. However, in general the first that needs to be done in branding is to try to position a brand.

Brand positioning had only 4 parts, 4 questions that need to be answered precisely!

1. Who is the brand for?
2. What is the brand one of?
3. Why is the brand better than other ones?
4. *Why should people believe in the brand promise?

Who is the brand for?

Basically it’s the target market. The misconception among many business startups or bad marketers is that the larger the target market the better the brand will do, WRONG!!, in reality the broader the target market the easier the brand promise will miss its mark. What you want to have is a target market big enough so that the business would make sense.

almost every web project i get these days, the owners want to capture the entire internet, they all assume if people give it a chance they would be able to live without it, in other word everybody is going to love their product so why should they limit their product's success by narrowing the target market. The answer is simple, no 2 people are alike, if you love something i might hate it, and since we are all so different we want different things and we value different things. So the logical process is to research the market and figure out what a group of people have most in common, the more things they have in common the better we can angel the promise to cater to their needs and wants.

Getting the target market right is critical to the entire process, if you don't have a clear target market, or have doubts that the target mark would like what you have you might as well not proceed to the next questions. NO TARGET MARKET, NO BRAND SUCSESS!

What is the brand one of?

Competition, you need to know who you're competing with before you can try to penetrate the market. Also knowing who you're competition is will allow you to position yourselves above them both from value offering and product quality. The biggest trick in branding is to attack the industry from an outsider point of view. An industry outsider gets to view the whole field and is not easily intimidated to the mambo jumbo that the insiders have to put up with everyday.

Just knowing the competition is not enough, you have to research the A-Z of competition from the products they have, the way they sell and distribute, advertising method, other brands positioning, value offerings, future innovations and etc. Do a great job in identifying your competition and all of a sudden coming out with a great brand positioning is relatively easy!

Why is the brand better than other ones?

Your brand has to have something that would make it sellable. If you have a product that 3 other companies have then it comes down to some simple things like inventing a whole new target market, but if you have a product that no one has or it's a better version of all other similar products then there are 3 things your brand and product should be

• Technical
  
• Functional
  
• Emotional

Why should people believe in the brand promise?

Every brand just like every human being needs to have a soul. The soul of a brand is its personality, characteristics, intelligence and charm.  Creating a personality for a brand is a science all by itself, my prime example is Apple, and other ones might be Google or Ferrari. These are some of the brands we see as having a personality, you don't see a huge corporation behind but as something else, you somehow want to trust these companies. On the other hand take Microsoft or GM or most of the Bank Brands, they have no soul, we always see them as big corporations that control things, it is really easy to hate these companies.

Some great sites that have a lot of branding articles and have great resources about branding:

Interbrand | SagePub | Branding Strategy Insider | Other Great Articles