Deciding on your Naming Criteria

Step 1: Know my "Capital Offenses" - the high crimes of naming punishable by a lifetime of mediocrity

There are rules. And then there are Capital Offenses—the high crimes of naming that get you sentenced to a lifetime of mediocrity, forgettability, or worse: sounding like everyone else.

Every letter matters in the name game. Choose wrong, and face the consequences.

The following rules are ranked in severity: from ALL CAPS (the non-negotiables), to Uppercase (strongly advised), to lowercase (contextual, but still worth knowing). Use them to shape your taste, sharpen your criteria, and stop you from settling. Violate them at your own risk.

The court of public opinion has a long memory and limited attention span.

ALL CAPS NAMING OFFENSES

Maximum threat to brand identity. Lifetime sentence. No parole. These rules are loud, bold, and non-negotiable. You break these, your name breaks you.

OFFENSE NO. 1 — DESCRIPTIVENESS

The ultimate crime: choosing the obvious, expected, or boring name. A good name doesn't tell the whole story. It starts the conversation. If your name just describes what you do, it's a wasted opportunity for personality and Penalty: Sentenced to permanent brand anonymity. You think a boring name will protect you from judgment. It won't. It'll just make sure no one notices you in the first place.

OFFENSE NO. 2 — CROWDSOURCING

Naming by committee = guaranteed mediocrity. Asking a group for their opinions is asking for compromise. Every time you ask your group chat, your coach, your mastermind, or your mom to vote on your name, you're actually voting for the safest choice – likely with the personality of a rice cake. Safe names are expensive. They cost you attention. They cost you curiosity. They cost you differentiation. I always say it’s like ordering pizza for a party. To keep everyone happy, you'll end up with simple cheese + pepperoni, when hot honey pepperoni + ricotta was an option?!🤤Penalty: Death by committee. May your creativity rest in pieces.

If you want MY opinion on your name idea, I'll give it to you. Check out my freebie: NAME DROP!

OFFENSE NO. 3 — “THINKING” INSIDE THE BOTS

It has to be said – don’t use AI for naming. AI draws from what exists, ensuring your "unique" name is mathematically derived from thousands of others. Bots don't understand cultural nuance, emotional impact, or strategic differentiation—they understand patterns. And patterns, by definition, are predictable. Penalty: The slow horror of watching your competitors launch with suspiciously similar names. Then the realization dawns: you all used the same AI tool, asked similar questions, and received virtually identical outputs. 

OFFENSE NO. 4 — MULTIPLE COUNTS OF FEAR

Count One: RISK AVERSION Names get rejected because they're different, not because they’re bad.

Count Two: DICTIONARY DEPENDANCE Fixating on what your name literally means instead of what it could become. The best names aren't born with meaning—they earn it. ("Kodak" was literal gibberish before it became synonymous with capturing memories.)

Count Three: COMFORT ADDICTION  Craving the warm blanket of immediate acceptance. Count Four: SKEPTICISM Mistaking initial doubt for failure. A momentary "huh?" isn't a weakness, it’s a competitive advantage. If everyone immediately loves your name, it's too familiar to be memorable. Apple was a fruit long before it was a tech company… Nike was a Greek goddess before she was an athletic apparel brand.

Penalty: Life sentence to brand purgatory—always existing, but never really exactly where you want to be.

Uppercase Naming Offenses

Still serious. Still sharp. Still should be followed—unless you’ve got a damn good reason.*These come with disclaimers – These are pretty subjective. 

Offense No. 5 — Insulting Your Audience’s Intelligence

The compulsion to overexplain a name screams insecurity. And not in the “radical vulnerability” way. In an “ick” way.  Give people more credit – they’ll “get it!” It’s a power move to have a great story in your back pocket. Let them ask, then let them sit with it. People remember what they work to understand. Penalty: Your brand becomes the corporate equivalent of mansplaining. Customers flee the unnecessary explanations while competitors who respect their intelligence capture the market you desperately over-explained yourself out of.

Offense No. 6 — Perfectionism

No name is perfect. Prioritize what matters most. You want short, clear, cool, available, original, emotionally resonant, and loved by everyone? I want a pill to make pets immortal. Neither of us is getting what we want. Unfortunately. Every name comes with trade-offs. (We can decide on your criteria together!) Penalty: Eternal brainstorming. You never launch. You just loop.

Offense No. 7 — Impatience

Thou shall not demand instant gratification. Names are rarely love at first sight. Sleep on it. Try it on. Swirl it around in your mouth. The first time you hear or see name suggestions, your brain will be fighting against our natural familiarity bias. Penalty: Settling for the first thing that feels easy—and missing the one that could've made you memorable.

Offense No. 8 — Impossible Expectations

Your name isn't a one-man band. It’s never without context. A tagline. Copy. Visuals. Your client experience. It works alongside everything else you create. Let it do its job—not all the jobs. Penalty: Asking your name to carry the brand—and watching it collapse under pressure.

Offense No. 9 — Industry Imitation (Trend Following)

We’re hard wired to stick to what feels good – what feels “safe” – but if your name blends right into your niche, that's a problem. Familiarity breeds forgettability. See also: any name that has “Haus” in it. Penalty: Mistaken identity, & mandatory rebranding when the trend dies plus a 25% embarrassment tax when you start archiving your old posts.

lowercase offenses:

Misdemeanors of naming. Still punishable, but with possibility of parole. These “rules’ are contextual, flexible, and occasionally breakable—but only with intent.

offense no. 10 — domain dependence

The URL obsession is so 2005. "But we can't get the exact domain" is the lamest excuse in the naming playbook. It's 2025. Nobody types full URLs anymore. They search, they click links, they use apps. A memorable name with a modified URL beats a forgettable name with a perfect domain every time. The internet has evolved. Penalty: Settling for PerfectURL-TerribleName.com while watching competitors succeed with GreatName.co.

offense no. 11 — personal attachment

Your audience doesn't share your mental Rolodex. They're coming in fresh. Making naming decisions based on personal associations is like avoiding restaurants because they serve your ex's favorite food. Irrelevant data. Penalty: Passing on a great name for reasons no one else understands.

offense no. 12 — founder fixation

Naming your company after yourself isn't always bad, but it's rarely interesting. Penalty: Required to answer "So, who's [your name]?" in every meeting for eternity, even long after you've sold the company.

I have a whole blog on this very thing right here.

offense no. 13 — uninspired wordplay

Don’t pun for pun’s sake. I love wordplay. It can be SO fun, but it doesn’t work for everyone. If it's not sharp, strategic, or relevant, it’s just noise.

Penalty: Cringe. And maybe an eye-roll from your future customers.

Developing your Name Criteria

Now that you know all the Capital Offenses, you (or we - if we work together) can decide what's most important to you.