/skills/brand-ideation/references/naming-evaluation-rubric.md

Naming Evaluation Rubric

A name has to clear six bars. This document walks through each, with examples of names that pass and fail.

A short-listable name passes all six. Most names fail at least one. The bar is necessarily high because a name lives forever.

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1. Pronounceable

A name people cannot say will not get said.

Pass:

• "Stripe" - one syllable, unambiguous
• "Notion" - two syllables, common word, clear stress
• "Loom" - one syllable, common phoneme

Fail:

• "Xobni" (the X is silent? before the b? unclear)
• Names with non-English diacritics for an English-speaking market that get stripped to ambiguity
• "Yext" - is it "yext" with a hard Y or "ekst"? People disagree

Test: Read the name aloud to 5 people who have not seen it written. If 3 of 5 pronounce it differently, fail.

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2. Spellable

A name people cannot spell will not get found.

Pass:

• "Asana" - phonetic, spelled exactly as it sounds
• "Patagonia" - long but predictable
• "Slack" - one syllable, common word

Fail:

• "Häagen-Dazs" - even the inventors made it hard to spell on purpose
• Names with silent letters that are not standard English
• Names with "ee" / "ea" / "ie" ambiguity
• Names with double letters in unexpected places

Test: Read the name aloud to 5 people. Ask them to spell it. If 2 of 5 misspell it, fail.

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3. Available

A name you cannot legally use is not a candidate.

Check, in this order:

1. Trademark search in the relevant jurisdictions. Class matters - you can have the same name as another brand if you operate in different categories, but check.
2. Domain availability. The .com (or category-relevant TLD) for the exact name. Adjacent TLDs (.io, .co, .app) are weaker; .com is still default for most categories.
3. Social handles. Check the major platforms. Inconsistent handles fragment the brand.
4. Existing brands in the category. Even if trademark is technically clear, a confusable competitor name is a problem.
5. Negative associations. Search the name in quotes. See what shows up.

Pass:

• A name with .com available, no conflicting trademark, clean handles across major platforms

Fail:

• A name where the .com is parked at $50,000 and no budget exists
• A name that conflicts with a registered trademark in the same class
• A name that someone notable already uses on social platforms

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4. Distinctive

A name that gets confused with competitors loses every benefit of being a name.

Pass:

• "Stripe" in payments - distinct from PayPal, Square, Adyen
• "Notion" in productivity tools - distinct from Asana, Monday, Trello
• "Loom" in async video - distinct from Zoom, Vimeo, YouTube

Fail:

• A name one letter different from a major competitor
• A name that rhymes with a major competitor
• A name from the same conceptual family (e.g., another fruit name in a market dominated by Apple)
• A name with words common in the category (e.g., "Pay" in fintech, "Code" in dev tools, "AI" in AI products) that gets lost in search

Test: Search the name + category. If your name is buried under unrelated content or competitor confusion, fail.

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5. Stretchable

A name that locks you into one product or category will hurt as you grow.

Pass:

• "Amazon" - was a bookstore. Now sells everything.
• "Apple" - was a computer company. Now does phones, music, services.
• "Stripe" - "stripe of code" implied developer tools. Now does broader fintech.

Fail:

• "TomatoTracker" - locked to tomatoes
• "PDFMonkey" - locked to PDFs
• Names that explicitly describe a single product feature, when the company plans to be more than that single feature

Note: Locked-in names can be the right choice IF the company is committed to staying narrowly focused. "PDFMonkey" works if you genuinely just want to be the best PDF tool. The failure is when you outgrow the name and have to rebrand at scale.

Test: Imagine the company in 5 years, expanded into adjacent categories. Does the name still fit? If not, plan for it.

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6. Free of negative associations

A name that means something embarrassing in another language, or that already carries cultural baggage, will hit a ceiling.

Check:

• Translations. Run the name through a few major target market languages. Native speakers should review (translation tools miss nuance).
• Slang. Especially Gen Z and online slang shifts fast. A name that was clean five years ago may not be clean today.
• Acronyms. Some names form embarrassing acronyms when written in caps or in initialisms.
• Visual confusions. When written in certain fonts, do letters create unfortunate combinations? (Famous example: "kidsexchange" spelled as one word.)
• Existing pop culture. Is the name a character in a recent TV show, a banned topic, or a meme?

Pass:

• Cleared in target markets, no recent cultural collisions, no embarrassing acronyms

Fail:

• Names that translate to insults or anatomical terms in target markets
• Names that match recent meme content (the meme will fade but the association sticks)
• Names with unfortunate acronyms (e.g., "Strategic Health Initiative Team")

Test: Native speakers in each target market review. Plus a 5-minute search of the name in pop culture context.

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Scoring

For each candidate name, score 1 to 5 on each of the six criteria, where 5 is "passes cleanly" and 1 is "definite fail."

A name is short-listable if it scores 4 or 5 on every criterion. A 3 anywhere is a yellow flag (proceed with eyes open). A 2 or 1 anywhere is disqualifying.

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Pragmatic notes

• Domains: .com is still default for most US/global brands. Category-specific TLDs (.app, .ai, .io) work in some categories but require more brand investment to teach the audience.
• Trademark: Get a real attorney to clear the trademark before launch. The cost of a TM search is dramatically less than a rebrand.
• Generic names (descriptive of the category) cannot be trademarked and will struggle with distinctiveness.
• Made-up names are easier to clear and trademark but require more marketing investment to load with meaning.
• Founder names carry heritage but can complicate equity and exits.

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When to walk away

If the top 3 candidates all fail at least 2 criteria, the naming exploration was not deep enough. Generate another 30 to 50 candidates before settling. The cost of a bad name is paid every day for the life of the brand.