Good names make you feel something
They get a reaction—a smile or a raised eyebrow.
This reaction creates an opportunity for you to show people the difference you can make in their lives.
A name is a small package.
A word or two, a short phrase at most. We work collaboratively to understand the competition, context, and opportunity, in order to learn how the name can be most impactful.
Naming is a process.
A lot of factors go into selecting a name and it’s our job to make sure things like trademark screening, URL acquisition, and cultural checks are addressed thoughtfully and in the proper order.
Names are living things.
They take on meaning as people experience your brand. We want to set you up to make a good first impression, one that only grows and deepens over time.
Naming is often a group activity.
We often joke that about 20% of our job is generating names. The other 80% is getting a group of people to make a subjective decision together. Learning how your team thinks and makes decisions is an essential part of the naming process.
Naming is our life’s work.
Our team of six has 65 years of naming experience at A Hundred Monkeys. We’ve done over 600 projects for clients big and small on all inhabitable continents. We’re still waiting to hear from the Antarctic Research Station.
MIRO is an excuse to think of your workday as a collaborative canvas. Derived from Joan Miró, the Spanish painter and sculptor who painted bright, bold murals of surreal amoebic forms. His vibrant, energetic work was a perfect metaphor for bringing ideas to life. Miro can also be considered as an empty vessel name with a connection to the Spanish word for “look” or “watch.”
When we began the project, Miro (then RealTimeBoard) had offices in San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Perm. We were lucky to be able to meet with the majority of the team in San Francisco to demo the product and work through our intake process. The team wanted a short, unmistakable name that spoke to creativity and visual collaboration.
Names were screened in the US and EU.
Not a project priority but the team was able to acquire miro.com
After legal review, we met with the leadership team in San Francisco and worked through the final contender names one by one. It rarely happens this way but we actually made a decision as a group, in the room.
Imbue is an AI systems company creating practical AI agents capable of complex reasoning. They believe that AI has the potential to make life better for people, offering the time and space to live happier lives.
When we first met with the team they were still operating under their original name: Generally Intelligent. While we appreciated the humor of the pun on “artificial general intelligence,” most people thought the name was a lot to process and maybe a little too frivolous. We were able to work directly with the founders, including the passionate and thoughtful CEO. We progressed through several rounds of naming, refining our directions, style, and tone along the way.
Imbue received a B in the preliminary U.S. screening and passed all deeper legal diligence.
The team had funds allocated for a domain name purchase and were thrilled to be able to acquire imbue.com.
Imbue received uniform praise from the project participants in our third round of naming. The name felt magical, distinctive, lively, warm, and artistic. They all appreciated that the name could indicate “imbuing computers with intelligence and human values.” After a long search it was nice to find a name that felt right for their purpose and their personalities.
Definite Articles is a performance apparel brand that is entirely biodegradable. The fashion industry wastes 2.4 billion pounds of textiles annually. Biodegradable apparel is an important step in closing the loop.
Definite Articles is a term borrowed from grammar. In English, it’s the word the. But in the context of clothing and fashion, the term takes on new meaning. Calling clothing articles makes them feel valuable and considered. Definite Articles feel durable and confident. This acts as a fitting counterbalance to the idea of biodegradable clothing—as if to say “This clothing is built to last.” That is, of course, until you’re done with them and pop them in the compost.
Definite Articles received an A grade in preliminary trademark screening and didn’t run into any issues during the registration process. This is thanks in no small part to it being a longer, two word name. In a world where everyone wants something short, longer names definitely stand out.
The team at DA registered definitearticles.com. Again, having a longer name was very helpful here.
Definite Articles was the fourth name presented in the first round. We do a lot of groundwork before presenting names to ensure that our early options can be winners.
Groundcover is any plant that grows over an area of ground and provides protection of the topsoil from erosion and drought. The Tel Aviv-based team loved the name as an easy metaphor for their DevOps monitoring platform that installs in a flash, stamps out issues, and recedes to the background when things are running smoothly.
Our team worked directly with the co-founders so we got up to speed quickly and decisions were made swiftly. Once they landed on Groundcover the team built a lovely, playful brand identity, and have found success at every turn.
This was a standard software search in the US and Israel.
URL wasn’t as much of a concern and they’ve managed to acquire the .com.
After one round of names the team liked nearly half of what we shared, mulled the names over for a short while, then emailed us with the good news: they’re were going with Groundcover.
Our Names
We’ve named just about everything under the sun. Have a look here.
The Competition
A lot of folks list naming as one of their services. See what they have to say.