We want to guide you through the often-overlooked process of choosing your company’s brand name, a journey made up of precise steps, tough questions, and strategic decisions.
Behind every great brand name, there’s a method. Strategy. Thought.
That's what you'll find in this article:
Contrary to popular belief, naming isn’t just about a spark of inspiration at sunset or a “shower epiphany” (though sometimes that helps). It's not enough for a name to simply sound cool or make people go "wow."
A truly good name has to line up perfectly with your positioning (we talked about that here), it has to be free, registerable, and ideally, a good fit for your target market.
Most importantly, it must echo over time and carry your vision forward for the long haul.
And here’s what no one tells you: choosing a brand name, or a tagline, often turns into a real exercise in diplomacy, compromise, and internal office politics. You’ll need to balance the marketing team’s ideas, the founder’s vision, legal requirements, and the investor’s preferences. It’s rarely easy, almost never neutral, and it absolutely must resonate with your audience’s values.
So, let's get back to basics.
Naming is your brand's first impression. It's the single word that represents everything: your product, history, values, and ambitions. It serves as a point of recognition and something that evokes emotions.
A strong name is easy to remember, easy to find, and easy to understand.
Naming is a key strategic tool for brand positioning, able to encapsulate identity and vision in a single word. If done well, it becomes an asset. If done poorly, it's a hindrance.
A well-crafted name isn't just a label; it's a powerful tool that can directly boost your business growth. Here's why getting your name right makes such a huge difference:
It saves you money long-term: when naming is done right at the very beginning, you avoid costly rebrands, legal issues, or confusing pivots later on.
We've just talked about how great good naming can be, but unfortunately, it's not always smooth sailing. While we can't name names (that wouldn't be ethical!), we can tell you we've helped save some brands from spectacular missteps.
We're talking about names so common you can't remember them even after seeing them three times. Names so long or complicated you have to spell them out letter by letter over the phone. Or names that, in another language, mean the exact opposite of what you're trying to communicate!
Let's summarize here some frequent mistakes and things not to do when you are considering a name choice:
❌ Ignoring the pronunciation and flow: How does it sound when spoken aloud? Is it catchy or clunky?
❌ Picking a name that is too similar to well-known (and perhaps competing) brands
❌ Skipping legal or domain verification
❌ Neglecting the meaning of the name in other languages or markets
❌ Underestimating visual culture and industry context
❌ Choosing a “pretty” name with no story or brand depth
One of the most popular stories in the naming world highlights the ill-fated choice of the name Chevrolet Nova for a new passenger car intended for the Spanish market.
A bold choice, "Nova," which in Spanish actually means "doesn't go." Who would buy a car that "doesn't go"?
While Snopes has actually debunked the myth of a sales collapse, the story has stuck around as a classic example of cross-cultural blunders in naming – and it's always good for a laugh at the end of a dinner party!
So what really goes into choosing a brand name?
Mainly study. Of the market, the target audience, the competitive environment.
Then comes the analysis. Of positioning, tone of voice, differentiating traits.
And finally, yes, even intuition. Sometimes pure chemistry - as Cocciante sings it's "A matter of feeling."
The truth is, finding a name that truly works, tells your story, and satisfies everyone involved is neither simple nor quick.
A name doesn't just appear out of nowhere. It carries an entire universe with it. When we're involved in naming, we're essentially telling stories. A good name should suggest imagery, evoke emotions, and open up new narratives. It needs to reflect a clear positioning but also carry a compelling story.
Storytelling is crucial because it transforms a mere set of letters into a promise, a direction, and a clear identity. If a brand aims to build genuine relationships, it absolutely has to start here, with its foundational story.
What happens when your brand isn't just one entity, but a complex organization with multiple product lines, business units, or sub-brands? In these situations, naming evolves into brand architecture.
You need to design a clear, scalable logic that holds the whole system together. A system that allows the main brand to coexist harmoniously with all the other elements of the corporate universe, avoiding overlaps, inconsistencies or semantic short circuits. Each name must find its place within a hierarchy: there are mothers, there are sons. And each name tells a function, an identity, a specific role.
In this context, naming becomes strategic design. You have to think long-term: How will your offerings evolve? What names will still make sense five years from now? What language system will allow for new line extensions without breaking the overall coherence?
This is where brand architecture models come in, such as the house of brands, where each sub-brand lives a life of its own (think Unilever or Procter & Gamble), or the endorsed model , where secondary brands retain autonomy but are supported by the reputation of the main brand (such as "Marriott"). And then there is the branded house approach , in which everything revolves around a single parent identity that signs every offering (Fedex, for example).
Choosing the right model is not a gut decision. You need an outside, professional look that can read the entire business ecosystem and propose a structure that is sustainable today, but also tomorrow. Someone who can ask the right questions, identify critical junctures and competently steer the path. And here, more than creative people, branding planners are needed. Professionals who can build an infrastructure that will hold up, grow and breathe over time.
Here romance gives way to bureaucracy (but it is necessary).
Checking name availability means making sure that::
The starting point we feel like suggesting is to check the portal zefix.ch, the central index of company names in Switzerland. Here you can make an initial exploration to see if the name you want has already been registered by another company, in any canton.
Please note: the mere absence of the name is no guarantee of availability.
his is often the stage where you realize that "perfect" name is already taken, and you have to go back to the drawing board. That's why it's crucial to rely on professionals who understand the process and can also assess the acceptability of a specific business name.
No naming project today can ignore digital presence.
That is why, as we said, it is essential to contextually check if the chosen name is available as a domain, starting with the extension .ch, but also.swiss, .com, .net, .io or others, depending on your project's ambitions.
Tools such as name.com, GoDaddy, or Infomaniak allow these checks to be made quickly.
Best practice: Ensure consistency between your name and its domain. Avoid forcing a fit, using overly long or unintuitive abbreviations, or adding symbols. For example, a domain like the.domain.I.would.like.should.not.be-too.complicated.com is a definite no.
If your ideal domain is already registered, it may be because:
Some sites allow direct negotiations with the owners, sometimes with low figures, sometimes with significant costs, especially if the name has strategic value.
Even in these cases, experience matters: knowing how to negotiate the correct price, evaluate alternatives or defend a secondary naming can make all the difference.
Past the initial excitement about the name (and the puns) comes the operational part.
Here it is important:
There’s the technical side: registries, domains, paperwork.
There’s the legal side: compliance, exclusivity, trademarks.
And there’s the strategic side: knowing when to hold on to an idea, when to pivot, and when to fight for your name.
Having seasoned professionals by your side makes all the difference. At Ander Group, we’ve been through this process dozens of times since 2006. We know where to look, what to avoid, and when to stop before heading into a dead end.
Because ultimately, yes, naming is creativity. But it’s also craft, experience, and the ability to bring together vision, rules, and instinct.