When re-branding a business or a product or when you set up a new one and have to come up with a brand new name you should find a way to evaluate among different options that might come up in order to choose the best one out of them. Here I just stumble upon and interesting tool to dissect potential names into the nine categories to make it easier to understand why name work or don’t work, and to more easily weigh the pros and cons of one name versus another:
Appearance – Simply how the name looks as a visual signifier, in a logo, an ad, on a billboard, etc.
Distinctive – How differentiated is a given name from its competition. Being distinctive is only one element that goes into making a name memorable, but it is a required element, since if a name is not distinct from a sea of similar names it will not be memorable.
Depth – Layer upon layer of meaning and association. Names with great depth never reveal all they have to offer all at once, but keep surprising you with new ideas.
Energy – How vital and full of life is the name? Does it have buzz? Can it carry an ad campaign on its shoulders?
Humanity – A measure of a name’s warmth, its “humanness,” as opposed to names that are cold, clinical, unemotional. Another – though not foolproof – way to think about this category is to imagine each of the names as a nickname for one of your children.
Positioning – How relevant the name is to the positioning of the product or company being named, the service offered, or to the industry served.
Sound – Again, while always existing in a context of some sort or another, the name will be heard, in radio or television commercials, being presented at a trade show, or simply being discussed in a cocktail party conversation.
“33” – The force of brand magic, and the word-of-mouth buzz that a name is likely to generate. Refers to the mysterious “33” printed on the back of Rolling Rock beer bottles for decades that everybody talks about because nobody is really sure what it means. “33” is that certain something that makes people lean forward and want to learn more about a brand, and to want to share the brand with others. The “33” angle is different for each name.
Trademark – As in the ugly, meat hook reality of trademark availability. All of the names on this list have been prescreened by a trademarked attorney and have been deemed “likely” for trademark registration.
Read more about it here