Our brand naming process at Heirloom
How we help organizations develop distinctive, strategic names that last
The brand name is often the first and longest-lasting asset you’ll create—whether you’re naming a product, company, service, or something else entirely. Beyond identification, the best names can inform, stand out, evoke emotion, and stick in the mind.
At Heirloom, our brand naming process is rooted in decades of experience developing names for companies, products, and services across industries. Informed by Rob Meyerson’s book Brand Naming, it’s a clear, proven sequence designed to help leadership teams make confident decisions with clarity and speed.
Below, we walk through how Heirloom approaches the process of naming a business, product, service, or initiative—from first briefing to final approval.
01. The naming brief
The best brand names are rooted in strategy. Before we generate a single idea, we work with your team to define the strategic criteria that will guide all naming decisions.
That starts with understanding your business:
What we’re naming
What makes it special or interesting
The audience(s) for the name
The benefits you provide
Competitors or alternatives
How you want to be perceived
We translate these inputs into a clear naming brief that documents the desired content territories, name types to explore, tonality, legal boundaries, and linguistic considerations. A strong naming brief becomes the jumping-off point for the next step and a guardrail for the entire project.
02. Name generation
Once the brief is approved, we begin the creative development of name candidates. We cast a wide net, exploring word roots, metaphors, real words and invented language, technical terms, and more. In our experience, it’s one thing to generate a long list of “name ideas”—AI can help with that, too—but it’s more difficult to know a good name when you see it. This is where taste and experience matter.
We explore a series of territories informed by the strategy and articulated in the approved brief. Ideas are gathered, refined, filtered, and returned to repeatedly through multiple rounds of development.
We rely on a small team of deeply experienced namers to generate names that have the required strategic, creative, and technical qualities—names that are:
Memorable
Distinctive
Easy to say and spell
Flexible for future growth
Global-friendly when needed
03. Shortlisting and screening
Before we share name candidates with you, we’ve already conducted multiple rounds of screening. Preliminary trademark screening, sometimes called a knockout search, identifies glaring conflicts or issues that would clearly disqualify a name. We also perform cultural and linguistic disaster checks to rule out names with negative meanings or connotations.
This prescreening step prevents teams from falling in love with options that will inevitably fail in legal review. It also speeds up the decision-making process by ensuring the presented candidates include viable paths forward.
While we’re not attorneys, we’ve worked closely with trademark attorneys and prescreening professionals for years. We understand the realities of trademark risk, and we help clients identify potential pitfalls early and navigate the process with confidence.
04. Presentation
Drumroll, please…
When the stakes are high, name candidates should be presented—not just sent in an email or listed on a slide. In presenting name candidates, we provide essential context and practical guidance for evaluating the options.
For busy senior leaders, this step is critical. Seeing a name in use—even in a simple mockup—can make it feel more tangible and help accelerate alignment. We explain the thinking behind each option, how it connects to the strategy, and what gives it potential.
We present a curated list of strong candidates, but the goal at this stage is not to select the final name—it’s to narrow the list to a small set of options that can move forward into deeper legal screening.
05. Full legal search
A handful of selected name candidates undergo a full legal search. At this stage, an experienced trademark attorney conducts a deeper review of availability and potential risk—beyond the preliminary screening we’ve already completed.
While Heirloom doesn’t provide legal advice, we work closely with your trademark counsel or an outside attorney. Our role is to ensure the right context is shared and to help interpret findings so your team can make a confident, informed decision.
06. Final decision
The final stage of the brand naming process is alignment around a single name—often the hardest part for organizations.
Throughout the project, we work closely with your leadership and internal teams to structure decision making, maintain momentum, and avoid common pitfalls. This includes:
Clarifying relationships between name options and the strategy
Guiding discussions to keep evaluations objective and on track
Providing expert guidance when teams are split
Documenting rationale so decisions are clear and defensible
Our role is not to choose the name for you. Our role is to help you get to a final name—with confidence.
Once a decision is made, we can also support rollout planning, visual identity development, and messaging when needed.
Why this process works
A disciplined naming process spurs creativity, reduces risk, and makes decisions easier. It prevents subjective debates from derailing the work. And it ensures the final name is not just meaningful and memorable, but viable and strategically aligned.
At Heirloom, we’ve named everything from global platforms to early-stage startups, across sectors from financial services and healthcare to AI and quantum computing. Our boutique model means senior leaders drive the work, and every project benefits from high-touch collaboration and decades of combined naming experience.
Our process—shaped by real-world client needs and informed by best practices documented in Brand Naming—helps organizations approach the process of naming a business with clarity, rigor, and confidence.
Ready to start your naming journey?
If you’re exploring the process of naming a business, product, service, initiative, or something else—and want a strong, strategic partner—we’d love to talk. Get in touch.
