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About Naming
What to do with all this noise
- About: Naming
We live in a noisy world, and it’s not just noisy for our ears, it’s noisy for our eyes and our minds too. Modern communication has allowed us near-unlimited access to all our loved ones and acquaintances. It’s also made for a vast sea of content and managing all of this noise can be taxing…
Build it and they will come
- About: Naming, Naming Ecosystems
What we’ve learned from building naming architectures At A Hundred Monkeys we have a singular focus for most of our naming projects. We’re naming one company or one product. A smaller subset of our work is focused on naming multiple products that make up a brand’s portfolio. We call this work naming architecture. My colleague…
We need to stop naming people at work
People at Google are Googlers. People at Twitter are Tweeps. People at Amazon are Amazonians. These names feel like they are coming from a place of camaraderie and pride. There’s an element of shared experience. After all, you’re spending 40 (who are we kidding 50+) hours a week with these people. That’s more time than…
Eureka doesn’t exist: Why choosing a name takes hard work
- About: Naming
Our studio is in California where the state motto is Eureka. When it comes to selecting a name, we don’t believe in Eureka. Eureka is a cop out. Not once in my seven years of presenting names to clients has someone exclaimed “Eureka!” or something similar to “Eureka!” like “Yep, that’s the name. For sure….
Every naming related picture I took in the second half of 2018
- About: Naming
This is my second post cataloging all of the names I’ve taken pictures of in my life as a professional namer. Every time I run into a name that grabs my attention, I take a picture. Excuse the occasional blur or reflection. I was likely making someone (probably Allie) wait while I doubled-back to grab…
Naming Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur
This past autumn, I decided to take a look at the startup landscape for our annual Burning Ears event—an exploration of the best and worst in company and product names with the A Hundred Monkeys team. This year we decided to focus our collective energy on specific industries, and I elected to look at startups. In…
How to find good names
Good names do not fly out of the aether. Most are found, which requires careful looking. Books are one of the best places to look, so if you’re looking to find great names the more you read the more you’ll be successful at finding hidden gems. I’m always reading one or more works of both…
I looked at the names of every professional soccer club in the world
- About: Naming
The good, the bad, the incomprehensible Recently at A Hundred Monkeys we had the second annual Burning Ears. A celebration of the best and worst in naming. This year we were all tasked with exploring a particular category of names. I chose something close to my heart — the beautiful game. Finding the names of every…
The Burning Ears 2018
- About: Naming
For the second year in a row, the team at A Hundred Monkeys put our heads together for the Burning Ears—our annual look at the best and worst in company and product names. Last year’s Burning Ears was a product of Creative Director, Eli Altman’s naming workbook “Don’t Call it That” and his call to…
Realer than Fiction
- About: Naming
Companies and products that leapt off the screen. There’s one way to launch a brand that gives people unprecedented abilities to control public perception, make their brand feel real before it actually exists, fine tune their brand story, and have their audience’s undivided attention. It’s called fiction. Many brands have benefitted from having their name,…