# The Psychology of Business Names

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Nick Kolenda
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj3cvosRWcg
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/21640

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

so you have a product or service and you're trying to think of a good name for it can be tough a name that seems good at first might not actually be the best name for your business i read hundreds of studies on linguistics and i condensed all of this information into a step-by-step process that i'll explain in this video i wrote these steps in a pdf which you can download for free i'll put the link below but there are four steps step one choose the type of name i notice that two factors are important with brand names whether or not it's relevant and whether or not it uses actual words we can use these variables to create a two by two matrix a descriptive name is a word that's irrelevant like general motors home depot general electric a deviant name is a word that's irrelevant to their product like apple amazon pandora associative names are non-words that are relevant like facebook linkedin youtube neologistic names are non-words that are irrelevant like spotify kodak zynga these names have no inherent meaning now which type of name should you choose it depends on your goals here's a chart that can help you decide for example if you want a scalable name a name that you can bring and expand to different countries you should choose a neologistic name with no inherent meaning since your name won't have any pre-existing associations you'll have a blank slate on which you can build the exact branding and perception that you want the downside is that you'll be starting from scratch a name like dove in just four simple letters can communicate a burst of semantic traits because of the pre-existing meaning but whichever name you choose avoid the extreme size of the matrix or scatter plot consider the board game scrabble a highly relevant name like build a crossword is boring while a highly irrelevant name like kotima is confusing research shows that brand names are most persuasive when they fall in the middle of this spectrum throughout this video i'll walk you through a real-life case study i'm starting a consulting agency that applies behavioral science in marketing and design and one of our services is going to be this naming methodology so i'll show you how this process works by using it to generate the name for this agency that i'm starting and if you want to hire my agency to implement this process for your business i'll put my email in the description at this point i'll keep my options open and i'll generate potential names in all four types of names so let's move on to step two we need to figure out which sounds and letters to incorporate in the name if you had to guess which shape is kiki and which shape is bubba it turns out 95 percent of people choose kiki for the pointy shape and booba for the round shape this effect happens across languages in babies and remote populations so let's dig deeper here are two reasons why certain sounds just feel meaningful number one is blending we invent new words by combining existing words for example the word mash was invented maybe a thousand years ago then we invented new words like bat and smack and all of these words became ingredients for new words like bash and smash these words bash and smash were built from the word mash so we're repeatedly inserting these sounds ash into different words that involve some type of hidden and we do this with many words the sounds gl often appear in words related to light the words sn the mouth their nose so that's one source of meaning we blend words together over time we insert these same sounds into similar types of words sounds also feel meaningful because of perceptual fluency and kinesthetic fluency with perceptual fluency kiki seems sharp because the letter k is sharp while bubba seems round because the letter b is round other researchers argue that it's caused by the shape of the mouth kiki forms an angular while bubba forms a round shape of the mouth and why does that matter for naming and business consider two names brimley and bromley which of these names would be better for a knife the answer brimley whether it's the angular shape of the eye mouth research confirms that this name just feels more appropriate for a knife on the flip side bromley seems better for a hammer maybe because of the shape of the o the shape of the mouth so now that you know why sounds have meaning what are those meanings i put together this chart of sounds and meanings group 1 sounds are associated with these traits while group 2 i explain each connection in chapter 10 of the tangled mind but let's just look at one example with size sounds from group 1 seem small while sounds from group 2 seem large why is that we can blame pitch in the sensory world small objects produce a high pitched sound so if your product is lightweight or portable you want a name that incorporates sounds from group one this name will just subconsciously feel lighter and more portable so that's step two in our process look at these two groups and figure out which side just feels more appropriate for the branding that you're going after for my agency i'm leaning toward group two group one could work if i were creating a software that was quick and automatic but i want my services to seem careful and rigorous and controlled and i get that general

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

vibe from group two step three build potential names let's walk through a step-by-step process for each type of name and let's start with neologistic names these are invented names without any prior meaning so how can you invent a word or name and still have it sound meaningful the first step is to begin with a meaningful prefix the beginning of your name is really important it's like charm pricing the price of 299 feels much smaller than three dollars because your brain starts encoding this price before it reaches the end the same thing happens with names people make inferences about your product name before they reach the end of it so you need something to set the proper foundation here's a list of what are called bonus themes these are combinations of sounds that are associated with particular meanings for example the sounds br appear in words related to brightness so if you're selling video lights br might be a good beginning to your name or if you sell water or plumbing supplies fl might be a good beginning i don't see anything here that i'd want for my agency so instead i'm going to scan a list of latin prefixes i'll look through these meanings and i'll grab any root prefix that seems relevant to my agency in the end i found these prefixes some are related to behavioral science like cogn from words like cognition or m-ent i added others too i have acr which means the peak of something this might work better for an agency that does search engine optimization subconsciously this prefix will make it seem like this business could bring you to the top of the search result whatever you find write all of these prefixes on the left so that we can build potential names that start from these letters next arrange the sounds from front to back certain sounds are produced at the front of the mouth like b m and p other sounds are produced in the back of the mouth like k g or h that means certain words like buleka start at the front of your mouth and then progress inward and research shows that we prefer these inwardly composed words because it feels like we're ingesting something which is usually a good thing here's a spectrum of consonant sounds that move from the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth so our goal will be to construct a name that travels from left to right i also chose group two sounds so i'm going to highlight these particular sounds below we still have the vowels above so i'll keep those and now we have sounds that can form new words we can start at the prefix let's say acr and then move to a vowel let's say o and then just move across the spectrum in different pathways you don't need to confine yourself to these exact letters and sequencing just think of it as a helpful guide and finally end with a relevant suffix just like these latin prefixes we can also gather latin suffixes and i recommend derivational suffixes which are used to create new words which is exactly what we're doing i want a brand name that instills a concrete image so i'm going to look for noun suffixes but if i were branding a service i might focus on verb suffixes so that my name would sound like an action i looked through these suffixes and added them to our canvas and you could also consider gender female names often end with a vowel for example we could transform a masculine name like chris into a feminine name by adding a vowel christy krista chrissy and same with other names so you might want to end with a vowel if your branding is feminine or end with a consonant if your branding is masculine and at this point we might not need this middle portion let's simplify the explanation by focusing on these two prefixes that are related to behavioral science and let's merge them with these suffixes to form potential names in the end i generated these ideas it has things like cognibra cogniza mentago montabra and you could also expand these inputs if you're in excel you can add this complex formula and it'll take your column of prefixes and your column of suffixes and it'll generate all of the possible combinations of these word fragments here we have about 1400 combinations so if you were having trouble thinking of a name beforehand you're going to be overwhelmed with ideas now and that was the process for neologistic names look for relevant latin prefixes and suffixes fill in this middle portion with sounds from group 1 or group 2 and then brainstorm pathways across this spectrum the end result will be an invented name that's still endowed with meaning next are associative names these are still invented names but they have more relevance to your product the first step is to create a semantic map of your product for my agency i'll start with the primary term like behavior and then branch outward behavior is related to personality it's related to emotions are related to feelings and eventually we have a list of terms that are semantically related to the core topic of the business finally i came up with a list of naming techniques that can transform these inputs into possible names the blend technique pictionary is picture plus dictionary pinterest is pin plus interest possible names for my agency could be persite permise insight submise subsite braver the prefix technique turbo tax is turbo plus tax webmd is web plus md we could use the prefixes from earlier to build names like cognality or cognitude the suffix technique like shopify or bitly we could

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

generate behavior behavic bavarius the removal technique excel is excellent minus the lent acura is accurate minus the te we could generate behave emotio attentio optimi the replacement technique vimeo is video with an m we could generate evotion or cognivo the homophone technique we could change the spelling like fantastic or krispy kreme we could generate behavior or optics the automonopia technique you imitate the sound of your product like we or the golf company ping but it doesn't apply to our context the translation technique volvo is irrelevant ubuntu is humanity in zulu i copied our terms into google translate and i cycled through different translations in the end i liked these names mozak percepto cognito cerebro cancela optimera the acronym technique ibm is international business machine hero is help a reporter out i could think of a descriptive slogan like influence choices and behavior and use the acronym icab the rhyme technique like etch-a-sketch or fitbit it probably wouldn't work for an agency for maybe something like behavior savior or a line mind the founder technique dick's sporting goods lowe's marco's pizza the actual name of my business is called calendar group llc i could always rebrand under that name those are naming techniques that can help you generate a potential name for your business just compile as many ideas as you can and then we'll narrow down this list in a later step next descriptive names this section will be short because you should almost never choose a descriptive name for your business in the prospect's brain a name like optimize behavior is conceptualized as a description whereas a name like optimeo is conceptualized as a concrete entity and you need this tangible foothold in their brain we learn by association but we need something tangible on which to attach these new ideas descriptive names are less brandable because they don't possess the necessary tangibility to attach new ideas if you do choose a descriptive name then at least do something different like alliteration better business bureau or best buy or incorporate the domain extension into your name i copied all of these semantic terms into godaddy and i searched for relevant extensions like dot design or dot media or dot marketing i liked attitude dot media or optimize dot design these are descriptive names but this subtle dot transforms this name from a description into a tangible entity the last name is a deviant name which are somewhat metaphorical to build these names we're going to figure out which emotion we want the customer to experience and then we're going to look for instances of this emotion in context outside of our business the first step convert emotions into labels for my agency i want to highlight the intrigue and fascination of the research so i think a relevant emotion would be something like ah next expand the semantic map what are some contexts in which somebody might experience awe maybe nature what aspects of nature maybe mountains which mountains perhaps a very tall mountain like mount everest so everest could be a potential name other context of nature might be national parks and i'm guessing that's why apple names all of their operating systems after national parks and other specific landmarks these names communicate the ah that they want users to experience while using their products but for my context i might lean towards something like outer space which is more scientific in nature for example all of these names communicate a scientific idea that triggers a sense of awe which is a good metaphor for a behavioral science agency at this point we've generated names in all of these four types so step four we need to find the best name among this list so here are some factors to consider which domains are available i'll copy these names into a domain tool and i'm going to look for the extensions dot com and dot io i thought about dot co as well but i feel like it's perceived as a cheaper version of dot com and i don't want my agency to be perceived as a cheaper version of something else but for your business you might want to be perceived as a cheaper version of something else so it could be good and from our list there are about 40 domains that are available if one of your top choices isn't available you could look for another extension you could email the person who owns the domain you could try merging the name with the extension you could insert a word before the name so you still have options even if the dot com isn't available the next factor which names do you like this is going to be your business so you want a name that's going to excite you and make you excited to get up and start working every day some of these names would be objectively good brand names but they just don't excite me personally so i'll get rid of those names and i'm left with 15 names these are all names that i liked and had the dot-com or dot io domain available some might still be trademarked or unusable in other ways but let's keep narrowing down this list before we start doing those checks which names do your customers like normally i would run a survey with a technique called max diff i would ask people to indicate their most favorite and least favorite name among random combinations taken from the full list of names and these results would be more accurate than the simple rating scale but brand names are tricky

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 18:00) [15:00]

you can't really ask people which name they prefer because they're going to tell you which name sounds most relevant and that might not necessarily be the best name for your business instead you need to figure out the goal of your name for my agency i have two main goals for my name i want a name that will entice people on the content side i want you to look at the name of the channel and think oh that's interesting i'll check out their other videos so this type of name needs to be distinct and creative yet still somewhat relevant to their interests at the same time i still want to sell professional consulting services so even though i want a creative name it can't be too creative i need people to feel comfortable showing this name to their boss and hiring my agency in the list of names that we have there's one name that i think fits all of these criteria in its behavior it's creative and enticing yet it still retains the sense of professionalism and i also think it encapsulates my brand i take complex research in behavioral science and i simplify this complexity into a creative format so there's meaning on the surface and below the surface of this name if you're watching this video then you're probably my target audience so let me know what you think in the comments below the next factor is the name scalable i avoided names that involved anything related to marketing or design because i didn't want to constrain myself to these areas next can you spell it unfortunately behavior fails the radio test whenever i say go to behavior. com i'll need to specify you know it's not vior. com it's vur. com which is annoying can you pronounce it some people might unfortunately pronounce it like behavior but hopefully that percentage is small what are the possible translations certain names could be problematic even large companies fall into this trap sometimes since behavior is built from a real word i don't think i'll run into trouble and i'm not trying to build a global business anyway can you legally use it once you've narrowed down your list now you can start checking things like trademarks and other issues can you legally protect it behavior might be a little tough to trademark just because of its similarity to the general word behavior i might be able to adjust the name behavior by adding an umlaut over the you which would make it more distinct plus i think germany has a strong reputation in psychology and behavioral science so it wouldn't just be an arbitrary modification i'm still kind of torn so let me know your thoughts in the comments below umlaut or no umlaut so those are all of the steps for building a meaningful name for your product or business choose the type of name choose these sounds and letters build potential names by brainstorming pathways across prefixes and suffixes morphing relevant terms and adjectives or finding metaphors that capture the intended emotion and then you can narrow this list by various factors if you need help implementing this process you can send me an email and i'll let you know if my agency can help i'm planning to use this agency as a case study for all of my youtube videos so each video will explore a new aspect of the marketing and design for this business so if you haven't yet you can subscribe for those videos and i'll see you next time