What’s in a name?

Tonight I’m heading out to what’s considered the unofficial summer kickoff in Toronto: Do West Fest. This massive street festival has become a fun ritual.

Just a few years ago, it was called Dundas West Fest.

The name was changed because the street’s namesake, Henry Dundas, was a politician whose actions delayed the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and contributed to the subjugation of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Not a light subject as you wrap up your week — but we’re not going to get into the rationale behind the change, or about the festival at all.

It did get me thinking about naming in general.

It’s also a reminder that names carry meaning (sometimes many meanings).

So what’s behind the names of the many brands, places and products you’ve interacted with today? And what can you learn from it?

What billion-dollar brand names can teach us about building better

One of the things I find fascinating about branding is how much attention gets paid to products, marketing, sales, fundraising, and growth, while some of the most foundational decisions in a business receive little discussion.

Think about naming.

Founders will spend months refining a product. They’ll obsess over pricing, distribution, hiring, and customer acquisition. Investors will analyze market size, revenue models, and competitive advantages. Entire podcasts, conferences, and books are dedicated to scaling businesses.

Yet one of the first strategic decisions a company makes is often reduced to a quick brainstorming session, a domain search, and a few opinions from friends.

A few months ago, I came across a startup/business podcast conversation featuring David Placek, founder of Lexicon Branding — the guy behind names like BlackBerry, Swiffer, Febreze, and Pentium.

I’ve thought about it a few times lately, so today I’m sharing it with you.

As someone who has spent years working in branding and positioning (clearly not as long as David), I was locked in listening to this because conversations about naming are surprisingly rare outside of branding circles.

Knowing what went into some of these well-known names is fascinating, and you can learn a lot about business and the market from it.

You may see naming as a quick creative exercise. You gather around a whiteboard, throw out ideas, vote on favourites, and move on, right?

I’ve led branding projects and been in the room for naming sessions, and there’s a lot that goes into making them valuable (and no, we don’t go in expecting to leave with a final name in an hour that everyone is aligned on).

Sometimes, unfortunately, I’ve also been asked to rush it without much context or consultation. I get the need to be lean and move quickly, but too quickly is not ideal for anyone involved.

The reality is that the best naming work is often highly strategic. It sits at the intersection of positioning, psychology, linguistics, culture, and long-term business planning.

A strong name shapes first impressions, influences perception, creates memorability, and gives a brand room to grow.

One observation from Placek’s body of work is that the name isn’t the brand. The name is a signal for the brand.

Many leaders and founders approach naming as though the name itself needs to explain everything. They want customers to instantly understand the product, the category, the benefit, and the differentiation. The result is often a name that is highly descriptive, but largely forgettable.

Some of the most successful brands in the world took a different path:

Apple doesn’t describe computers.
Google doesn’t describe search.
Nike doesn’t describe athletic performance.
BlackBerry didn’t describe mobile technology.

Those names became meaningful because the businesses behind them consistently attached meaning to them over time.

The name created recognition.
The brand created significance.

This is where I think many businesses and organizations get stuck: focusing on being obvious, at the expense of distinctiveness.

Look across almost any category today, and you’ll see companies converging toward similar language. Software companies use the same handful of words. Consulting firms often sound interchangeable (or sometimes worse, the most generic acronym). AI startups increasingly blend together (also, do they all really need .ai in their name?) There is logic behind all this: Founders want potential customers to immediately understand what they do.

The challenge is that when everyone uses the same language, differentiation becomes harder.

A name does not need to tell the entire story. It needs to create enough intrigue, memorability, and strategic alignment to support the story that follows.

The role of sound itself can be really interesting.

Lexicon’s work explores the idea that certain sounds create certain associations. Words beginning with “sw” often suggest movement: sweep, swish, swoosh. Hard consonants can feel technical or powerful. Softer sounds can feel more approachable and human. Before we consciously process meaning, we often react to how something sounds.

That’s part of what makes names like Swiffer feel so effective. The product experience is embedded in the sound of the word itself.

It’s easy to dismiss this as overthinking. Until you realize companies have built multi-billion-dollar brands on these decisions.

The firms doing this work aren’t generating a dozen names and choosing their favourite. They’re often exploring hundreds of possibilities, testing pronunciation, memorability, trademark availability, cultural implications, and future flexibility. They understand that a name needs to work not only for today’s product, but for the company a decade from now.

Having a long-term perspective is particularly important.

A good name works for what you’re building today. A great name works for what you haven’t built yet. (Sometimes I have to remind clients of this).

Earlier this year I was thinking about this going through my own naming process with Clarity Content. The goal wasn’t to invent a completely new word or create something abstract, but to identify the idea behind the business itself.

So many times I’ve seen that founders and leaders don’t lack expertise or insights (they’re often overflowing with them). They often lack clarity when it comes to communicating all this, though. Clarity about their positioning. Clarity about their message and what makes them different. Clarity about how to communicate what they know in a way that others can understand and trust.

For my studio name, you could say that the word name doesn’t perfectly describe everything we offer. Instead, it reflects the purpose/belief at the centre of the business.

That’s ultimately what good naming does:
It gives language to an idea worth building around.

As creating products, content, and even companies becomes easier, distinctiveness becomes increasingly valuable.
More businesses will compete for attention.
More content will compete for visibility.
More products will compete for consideration.

The brands that stand out won’t necessarily be the loudest, but the ones that create the strongest associations over time.

That process often begins with a simple, yet massive question:
What should we call this?

Why brand matters more than ever

At the same time, I think it’s worth acknowledging that the context in which many of these iconic brands were built has changed dramatically.

BlackBerry, Nike, Apple, and many of the brands we reference when talking about naming emerged in a different era. Consumers discovered brands through television, print, retail shelves, word of mouth, and eventually websites. We all know that brands are encountered through social feeds, creators, recommendation algorithms, AI search results, online communities, and an endless stream of content.

The tools have changed too.

Anyone can generate a logo in minutes (not that it should be — my designer friends and I obviously weren’t thrilled when this first started happening). A colour palette can be suggested with a few clicks. A website can be launched in a weekend. AI can generate names, taglines, brand concepts, and identities almost instantly.

These things lower barriers to entry and make it easier for more people to bring ideas into the world.

But they can also create the illusion that a brand is simply a collection of assets.

A logo isn’t a brand. A colour palette isn’t a brand. A Canva template isn’t a brand. Even a great name isn’t a brand. Those things are expressions of a brand.

The brand itself is the meaning people attach to them.

It’s the reputation that forms through repeated experiences. It’s the story people tell themselves about a company after they’ve interacted with it. It’s the emotional and practical associations that accumulate over time.

This is one reason I’ve continued to advocate for brand strategy throughout my career and why I was excited to teach Future Brand Strategy within George Brown’s Brand Design program. The future of branding isn’t abandoning the foundations of brand building… it’s understanding how those foundations adapt to new technologies, platforms, and consumer behaviours.

In many ways, I think brand has become even more important.

When products become easier to manufacture, copy, and distribute, differentiation becomes more valuable.

When marketplaces are filled with nearly identical options, meaning becomes more valuable.

When consumers can order thousands of generic products from massive global marketplaces with a few taps, identity becomes more valuable.

When AI makes it easier than ever to create content, the businesses that stand out won’t simply be the ones producing the most — I am convinced they’ll be the ones people trust, remember, and choose to return to.

That’s where brand lives, in the meaning.
The logo, the name, and the tagline… they just represent that.

The strongest brands give people something to believe in, something to belong to, or something they feel good supporting. Sometimes that’s rooted in innovation. Sometimes it’s rooted in community. More and more, it’s rooted in purpose.

Almost anything can be copied. Meaning is one of the few advantages that compounds.

Wishing you a great weekend ahead!

PS — If you want the slides from my talk about The Content Ecosystem as a way to turn leader visibility into community growth (from SocialWest in Calgary last week), I’ve made them available for subscribers here.