Naming.
Names that clear legal, own the .com, and survive the founder's mother.
Why this specifically.
Naming looks easy from the outside and eats founding teams alive from the inside. Half the industry runs naming contests with 40 unranked options and no criteria; the other half hands you a Latinate portmanteau nobody can pronounce. We do neither. Our naming engagements produce five candidates, each with a clear brief, a trademark and domain pre-check, and a defensible rationale.
For Indian brands the naming problem is doubly hard: you have to work in English, Hindi, and at least one regional language, plus survive an MCA name-availability search that rejects half of what USPTO would approve. We run every candidate through all three gates before it reaches you.
We don't do generative-AI slop names. We don't do meaningless three-syllable coinages. We do names that mean something specific, sound like your brand out loud, and have a domain nobody is squatting on.
What ships to you.
Naming brief
The strategic criteria a name must meet — category signal, distinctiveness, sonic profile, cultural resonance. Signed off before we generate anything.
Long list (60 → 20)
60 candidates generated across five naming strategies (descriptive, evocative, invented, founder, place). Cut to 20 that pass the sniff test.
Short list (5)
Five finalists, each with a rationale, a story, and a trademark/domain report.
Legal & domain pre-check
USPTO, MCA, EUIPO trademark search + .com/.in/.co domain availability + Instagram/X handle check. Reported before you fall in love with a name.
Verbal identity pairing
Once you pick, we pair the name with a tagline, tone-of-voice, and messaging system so it launches with everything it needs.
5-step process, no filler.
- 01Criteria workshop90-minute workshop. We write the naming brief together — sonic profile, category signal, cultural range, and the vetoes. Signed by founders.
- 02Divergent generationFive naming teams work independently across five strategies. No cross-pollination until the long list is compiled.
- 03Convergent cutLong list scored against the brief. The top 20 go to trademark and domain pre-checks. The bottom 40 are documented so you never re-suggest them.
- 04Short-list defenceFive candidates presented with rationale, risk, and rollout. Founders pick two to test in real-world reads (customers, investors, family).
- 05Selection & registrationFinal pick. We coordinate with your IP lawyer for USPTO/MCA filing and secure the .com within 24 hours of decision.
The numbers.
Questions smart clients ask.
We guarantee the pre-check, not the filing. Every short-list name is USPTO- and MCA-clear at the time of presentation. Final filing takes 8–14 months and depends on your lawyer.
We'll pressure-test it against our criteria and give you a written go/no-go. About 60% of the time the answer is 'keep it, fix the positioning'. That's a much cheaper engagement.
Yes — product-line naming (nomenclature) is a separate engagement. We build a naming system so your 5th product doesn't need us again.
For India-first brands, yes. We work with translators in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Marathi to pressure-test how a name reads and sounds in each.
More inside Brand Strategy.
Kick off Naming.
30-minute strategy call. We diagnose live. No decks, no theatre.