Insights / How to name your startup
How to name your startup: lessons from the names we’ve given
A name is chapter one. It is also the cheapest media a brand will ever own.
Most founders spend months on the product and an afternoon on the name. Then they live with that afternoon for a decade. A name is the one piece of marketing you will say every single day, for free, forever. It deserves better than a brainstorm and a domain search.
Naming is where most of our brands begin. Here is what the names we’ve given have taught us.
Start with what you already own
The best names are rarely invented from nothing. They are found inside the business: in a mother tongue, a hometown, a technique, a botany book, even a line of film slang.
MaNe is Mana Nellore, “our Nellore”: a hometown folded into four letters, so every scoop of an organic ice cream carries where it came from. Hy~One is Hy for Hyderabad and One for where the convention centre intends to stay. LINAÉ comes from the twinflower, Linnaea borealis, which always blooms in pairs, for a clinic founded by two doctors. Read the LINAÉ story.
The founders are in the name, but only if you know where to look. That is what makes a name feel personal without being literal.
Make the user hear it first
A good name tells the right person what you do before they read a word. For an agri-biotech range, we named a nematicide Nema Fasak. Nema is straight biology, for the nematodes it kills. Fasak is a Telugu screen legend’s slang for a clean, decisive finish. A farmer hears exactly what the bottle does. Its sibling, Kheth Rakshak, is the field’s protector, the word people use for the police. Read the Telluris story.
A name is the only ad you’ll run every day, for free, forever.
Let the name carry a promise
Tremonde is tre, three, and monde, world: one mall, three worlds under a single roof. Northwave places a development in North Hyderabad, where the city’s next growth wave is breaking. First Pour names a café inside a brewery after the first thing poured each morning: coffee, not beer. In each case the name makes a promise the brand then has to keep.
Say it out loud
Before you fall in love with a name, say it to a stranger over the phone. Can they spell it? Can they repeat it? SOKU, Telugu for beauty with attitude, works in four letters and sounds global while staying rooted at home. O Fam, Organic, Farm, Family, is short enough for an egg stamp and warm enough for a family fridge.
[[img:ofam-labels|O Fam: a four-letter name carried across an entire range.]] Read the O Fam story.
A simple test for any name
Is it yours? Could a competitor use it just as easily? If yes, keep looking.
Is it sayable? One clear pronunciation, no spelling lesson needed.
Does it carry a story? Something true about you, waiting to be discovered.
Will it last? Avoid names tied to a trend, a single product or a single city you might outgrow.
Can you build on it? A good name gives the designer something to draw. Telugu Medium gave us a letter. Off The Shelf gave us an O.
Where naming meets design
A name and an identity should be designed together. When we named Five Little Tales, the bedtime-story rhythm became the stacked, hand-drawn letters of the logo. See how the name became the brand.
Need a name?
Tell us what you do and who it is for. We will come back with names you can say out loud, own outright and build a brand on. Or keep reading: what a brand identity actually includes.
