One of the most interesting talking points in the tech sector recently has been the rebranding of Twitter to X. Of course, it remains to be seen as to whether the rebrand works or not – and it might be years before we can judge it – but it does work to highlight the importance of branding for a business. Whether or not you like Elon Musk’s stewardship of Twitter/X, the latter brand is more suitable as a brand name for his ambitions. Musk wants to create “the everything app”, a platform for text, video, art, and even financial transactions and investing. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what he wants X to be. As a brand name, Twitter was designed to represent short-form microblogging posts, aka Tweets.
Of course, a typical startup should not be called something like X. Musk has advantages, and many of those outweigh the drawbacks of naming a platform X. It is an outlier for a brand name, and it will only succeed due to the association with the richest person on the planet and the fact it is a rebranding of an already ubiquitous product. But Musk’s rebranding does hint at something that we can learn from. Notably, a brand name should be evocative and interesting.
PayPal is the perfect example of a brand name
When considering brand names, you can’t go wrong in studying one of Musk’s former businesses – PayPal. It’s hard to think of a better brand name for a business. Interestingly, the PayPal brand was once called Confinity before being rebranded to the much better PayPal. Confinity, which was conceived as a portmanteau of confidence and infinity, is much too abstract. PayPal eludes to what the product is – a payment tool – without being too rigid about it.
Yet, there are examples of brand names that don’t really have much to do with the underlying products. Apple Inc., for example, is not involved in fruit in any way, and the brand name Apple exists in and of itself. Still, this is an outlier and, in most cases, a misstep for any new business. In the broadest sense, the name should provide descriptive clues to the nature of the business, while still retaining a sense of intrigue and subtlity.
Evoking an association is important
Consider the naming of online games and video games as a route to evocativeness. When you see a title like Call of Duty, you automatically think of the military; God of War speaks of mythology and ancient battles; Street Fighter evokes, well, street fighting; online games like Piggy Bankers suggest finance and money themes. None of these games spell out exactly what they are – Call of Duty is not called “Army Fighting Game” – they instead evoke what they are. The same rule can be applied to naming a startup.
Today, you can use startup name generators to help you pick the perfect name. Yes, some would dismiss such randomness as being quite crass, but some of them are actually very good, not to mention the fact that some generators now incorporate AI. They can help create brand names without stating the obvious. Names that are suggestive of what your startup will offer.
We can point to so many examples of good names in different fields. Consider the explosion of food delivery apps that came about in the last few years: DoorDash, GrubHub, and Deliveroo are all examples of memorable, clever brand names that immediately give an insight into the underlying business.
Choose a memorable name
Perhaps the biggest mistake of all is having a name that is immemorable, confusing, or too parochial. For a start, you should name your startup after yourself. Moreover, it should be short and easy to spell. The likes of Apple, Meta, Netflix, Google, and Amazon are all seen among the most successful companies of the last decade, and you’ll notice that they are all a single word and spelled with seven letters or next. Sure, there are outliers, like Microsoft. But generally speaking, less is more.
Other considerations can be seen as unimportant, but they can add up to the overall success. Jeff Bezos, for example, chose Amazon because, among other reasons, he wanted it to be near the top of lists when ordered alphabetically. He also chose Amazon due to its association with immense size. Another consideration is to think about how it looks in a web address. People can get confused when numbers are added to brand names, for instance, and that can also lead to problems when searching for your website.
Finally, we should say that you should not be afraid to change your brand name. Many of the world’s most successful businesses have done this, and they will continue to do so. Sometimes, this is due to the business itself evolving, and other times it is simply because a more suitable name presents itself. But as a starting point, use a name that evokes an association with your business, that is easy to spell and remember, and that you believe will set your business apart from your rivals.
