Eureka doesn’t exist: Why choosing a name takes hard work

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. I think we’re done here.”

It just doesn’t happen, but the idea that it does happen is a notion we encounter a few times a month from clients and potential clients. Our hypothesis of why this theory is floating in the collective aether is that it makes decision making as easy as the decision to remove your hand from an open flame. It’s a knee-jerk reaction that takes zero thought.

There is something romantic about the idea of being able to make such an important decision with relative ease. It’s ideal in the sense that it doesn’t exist but sometimes we wish it did, like fountains filled with liquid gold and friendly unicorns made from jello. In reality, having a sense of “I’ll know it when I see it” strips a person of all decision making responsibility — reducing a critical decision making exercise to binary filtering exercise. No. Yes. Done. Goodbye.

The long and short of it is there’s no Eureka moment, no being struck by a white hot bolt of creative genius as the sky splits open and a voice says “Yes, that is the name you must choose, you sweet sexy mastermind of business!”

Instead, final selection of a name is hard work that takes real deliberation. It’s hours and days of consideration, of weighing pros and cons, of what ifs and maybes, of trying the names on for size. The two most important considerations during this final selection process are legal viability and positioning, in that order.

1. It’s important you understand the legal landscape, i.e., talk to your lawyer. Send them a set of names (three or more is what we’ve found to be best) and they’ll run whatever set of screenings, inquiries, database lookups necessary to evaluate whether or not the names can, in good faith, be sent to the proper governing body that manages trademarks in the country or countries you’re looking to operate in. This screening process varies from lawyer to lawyer
— however, the end result is always something along the lines of green light, yellow light, red light; or A, B, C, D, F; or thumbs up, thumbs down. It’s a risk assessment. The question you need to ask yourself is what is your appetite for risk? We tend to recommend As and Bs, green lights, and thumbs up — when a lawyer says there is a high likelihood the trademark application will be approved.

2. This part is critical. Once you know how the legal landscape stacks up, consider how each name positions the company or product. Put simply, the name of the game is to zig when others zag. Specifically, ask yourself what story does this set me up to tell when someone hears the name for the first time? Where do I want to steer the conversation and does a name help or hinder in navigating that conversational line? These are the conversations you should be having with yourself and with the core decision making team.

Name selection is a prioritization exercise weighing creative firepower and legal risk. Hint: don’t let the lawyers win and don’t wait for a name to hit you over the head with it’s creative might — names are fragile at this stage and they need to be handled with care. Names are also something you grow into. You’ll fall more in love with the name once it’s yours and you’ve been living with it for a while. It’s just not the case that you’ll be head over heels the minute you meet for the first time.

So the next time you’re in the proverbial Sierra foothills looking for a golden nugget of a name, remember names aren’t golden nuggets, they’re small packages of language and they’re found down here in Berkeley. No screaming necessary.