This post isn’t about Brangelina - I just needed an image and, lets face it, why not use them. They’re a very handsome couple.

Recently, Catchword New York hosted our company’s quarterly retreat here on the East coast. All our California-based colleagues were forced to endure the nightmare that is modern day air travel and fly to New York (gottcha!). Some even had the (dis)pleasure of extended cab rides with clueless drivers and tours of remote New Jersey towns (sorry about that Aaron). But once everyone arrived and the discussions started we were all glad to be together talking about the business of naming.

During one of our discussions (I think we were talking about the crucial distinctions between product naming and company naming, or maybe it was just the 4 key components of good guacamole, I can’t recall) I used the term “stamping ground” to describe a place I used to frequent. It’s a good thing we started off the day with various stretching and relaxation exercises because I’m pretty sure at least half my colleagues would have gotten a nasty case of whiplash at hearing my use of “stamping” instead of “stomping”. Beth Gerber, one of our creative directors, in the most respectful tone, kindly asked: “Don’t you mean ’stomping ground’ Mark?”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that “stamping ground” was acceptable, and that I wasn’t simply confusing the term with “stomping ground”. But I used it anyway. Partly to arouse curiosity and discussion, and partly to say “ah-ha! I know something about language that even all of you don’t!” (9 times out of 10 my colleagues are right about these sort of language questions, so of course I was taking a pretty big chance here) I went on to say that I had read “stamping ground” in a piece of fiction once (Robert McCammon novel maybe??) and decided then to begin using it in place of “stomping ground”. Figured it made me sound smarter. Gave me an opportunity to correct all those “stompers” out there. Of course it wasn’t until I found myself in that room with all my brilliant, linguistically-trained colleagues that, I, um, started to second-guess my use of “stamping”. Long story short, we agreed to disagree until our meetings broke and we had the chance to look it up, consult a dictionary.

And……..wait for it…….wait for it……they’re both correct. My Webster’s Third International Dictionary (a behemoth of a book and quite authoritative) includes a definition for “stamping ground” but no definition (i.e. no entry at all, not even a redirect) for “stomping ground”. The definition for “stamping ground” is as you would expect for “stomping ground”: a place much frequented; a favorite or habitual resort. Conversely, my partner, Maria Cypher, found that her Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines “stomping ground” as “a favorite or habitual resort,” whereas for “stamping ground” it says “see stomping ground.” But the usage date for Stamping is 1786, whereas Stomping’s is 1854. So it would seem that people stamped before they stomped. Checking online, I found similar inconsistencies, but enough evidence to support that, while Stomping may be the more common modern day usage, Stamping is also perfectly acceptable.

So it was fair for my colleagues to look at me funny, but I can still hold my head up high at our next retreat. What can I say – I’m a stamper, not a stomper.

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In today’s San Francisco Chronicle (by Patricia Yollin):

Nzadi is one of the most obscure tongues in the world. That’s exactly why a UC Berkeley class has embraced it.

“There’s nothing like the joy of discovering a language from scratch,” said Cal linguistics Professor Larry Hyman.

The 10 students in his course, Introduction to Field Methods, are focusing on Nzadi this semester - the first such effort in any college or university to examine this remote member of the Bantu linguistic family.

“It’s a chance to study a language that nobody has studied before,” said graduate student researcher Thera Crane. “That opportunity does not come around very often.”

Nzadi is spoken by thousands of people in fishing villages along the Kasai River in Congo, a country with about 220 languages.

When I was a grad student at UC Berkeley, I took this class; it’s a requirement on your way to getting a PhD. For me - and most of the other students, I think - it was one of the most fun and intense learning experiences we had. For the first time, we were actually doing field research: the class sits down with a native speaker and starts from scratch, asking for the most basic words, like “tree” and “nose” and “mother”. You have to transcribe the words, working to build up enough of a vocabulary to make simple sentences. I think this particular class is so lucky to get to analyze a previously “obscure” language (obscure to us in the West, certainly not to its native speakers in Africa).

My class was supposed to study a Tiberto-Burman language, but our informant eloped with her boyfriend right before classes started, and we ended up with Irish. Which was good for me, because Irish has palatalized consonants, and that formed the basis of my Master’s Thesis. I’m still going to prove that palatalized consonants in Japanese, Irish, and Russian are NOT the same. You just wait.

In the meantime, go UC Berkeley Linguistics Program! It’s what got me into naming in the first place.

Tags: African languages, language, linguistics
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Those of us in the naming business have been looking for ROI data for an eternity. How can we justify the fees we charge if there’s no way to prove that changing the name actually impacts success? In a typical business name-change, there are too many extraneous factors that impact the success of a brand. The name might be great but the product sucks. Or the name is great but the marketing team sucks. (Of course, none of our clients suck, nor their products …)

Lo and behold, the Holy Grail of Naming comes to us from the sporting world, of all places. We now have a perfectly controlled experiment in which the same product, with two different names, has a yielded a dramatically different outcome.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were the worst team in the American League in 2007. During the off season, the team decided to change its name, dropping the “Devil” part and moving ahead as just the “Rays”. Admittedly, not the most dramatic name change in history, but we’ll take what we can get. So what happened? In 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays broke out of the losing funk the franchise had owned since their inception. They just clinched their first playoff birth (ever), and the team finished in the top three for the best record in all of baseball. Not bad for a team that did nothing else but change its name. How’s THAT for ROI?

It’s rare to observe a case study in which all other factors remain equal. For once it is undeniable - same players, same stadium and the same coaches and managers as the preceding year. Even the same competition. A complete turnaround fueled solely by the power of a name.

Objectively, we have to say that the new name is much better. Dropping the slightly lugubrious “Devil” makes a big difference. It’s snappier, and more in line with the classic “Mets” or “Cubs”. The rhyme isn’t too shabby either; the new name follows many of  rules we naming specialists apply: it rolls of the tongue, it’s fun, and it’s distinctive. Most importantly, it is less blasphemous. (KIDDING!) 

So here’s to the Tampa Bay Rays and their hopes of making the World Series after this record-breaking year. Take that new name and run with it!

And to all you other folks out there who want to turn things around, just look at the Rays. For immediate success, turn to your local naming company. We’re here to help.

Tags: baseball naming, naming ROI, sports naming, sports team naming
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As a member of the American Name Society, I get to enjoy all the name-related news on the email list. Today, someone called our attention to a website called Roger & Randy - it’s about business travel, done by two guys named (wait for it) Roger Collis and Randy Petersen. Full of great information. Easy to read. Great content. But the name…

I’m American, and even I can’t look at that name without saying “Too…many…jokes…”. For those of you who are British-impaired, let me explain: “randy” means “sexually excited”, and “roger” means…well, I don’t think I can say it out loud, as this is a family blog. But let us just say that one leads to the other.

I browsed around the site to see if R & R are aware of this secondary meaning, but I couldn’t find anything incriminating. Maybe they know and they just sigh and ignore it. Hey, they can’t help what they were named! But to all you web entrepreneurs out there: a little linguistic analysis goes a long way.

Tags: business naming, Company Naming
Posted in Fun stuff, In-the-News, Language use | 1 Comment

And in financial news today, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 237 points as bargain hunters scooped up ailing stocks following yesterday’s 777 point freefall. Despite the modest snapback, Senator Skoultchi from New York is still aggressively pushing his proposal to rename the index the Down Jonezing industrial average, at least until such time as lawmakers can get their heads out of their Aston Martins and agree on a plan to resuscitate the economy.

Senator Skoultchi acknowledged that he knows virtually nothing about economics or finance (and, quite shockingly, that he’s not even a Senator), but that the renaming makes sense because Americans demand transparency from our political and financial leaders. Never known for his oratory skills, Skoultchi was quoted as saying “Holy crap – did you see what happened in the market yesterday?! They oughta rename that index the Down Jonezing industrial average.”

He went on to say that prior to becoming a fake senator, he worked for many years as a name development specialist at a brand name development firm named Catchword, and that in all his years of consulting for Catchword he had never seen an easier target than the words “Dow” and “Jones” for a market index that was spiraling ever downward and in desperate need of a cash fix.

“I mean, c’mon, it couldn’t be any easier if the index was named the “Halp Mead industrial average. Alright, that’s not the best, but you get the point.” he was quoted as saying.

Tags: bank naming, economic naming, finance naming, financial naming
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Without getting into a debate about the merits of Anthropic principles, lets just assume for a second that we’re not the only intelligent life in this or other universes. Let’s also assume that we’re being watched, evaluated if you will, by a group of much smarter, hopefully more compassionate, possibly brand-savvy beings. For the fun of it, lets also say they’re fleshier, like Tim Allen at his fleshiest, and that they speak through a hole in their chest instead of their mouths, which they prefer to use only to chew space gum.

There. Now we have our aliens. Why did we create aliens? Like I said, because they’re watching us. And why are they watching us? Well, because our solar system is very interesting to them. It’s the perfect addition to their product portfolio. These aliens have been buying up planets for years and turning them into resort destinations for all their 12-toed customers. But they’ve never come across a solar system with such an interesting mix of planets, with so many different climates, day lengths and gravitational properties. It could easily become the crown jewel in their resort portfolio. Or so says Kyle in business development.

So, of course, they’re planning a hostile takeover of our solar system (in the, um, non-hostile, more corporate sense of the words, not with melt-your-face ray guns or anything). And chances are they’ll be successful. They’re very persuasive. Something to do with bigger brains and thought control. Anyhoo, the only question really is how they’ll organize their new resort brands, and whether they’ll rename any of the planets. I can imagine the conversation going something like this:

Saturn’s great! I love it. Cool name for a cool looking planet. And the reference to the god of agriculture could provide really interesting marketing tie-ins – you know, a natural resort destination, healthy-living, fresh food, all organic, etc. Mercury? Also cool. Slick name. Wasn’t he one of the gods of abundance? – we could definitely work with that. Jupiter? King of the gods. C’mon guys, that’s a no-brainer – we’re not changing Jupiter – you can’t find available intergalactic trademarks that good anymore. Venus, Mars, Neptune…fine, fine, fine. Like the others, named for Greek or Roman gods or goddesses. Gotta love the brand consistency, the systemization, the thematic cohesiveness. Christ - how did we miss this solar system before?! And Uranus? Another god? Amazing. Can’t you just see the tagline: Uranus. When you’re really pooped out. I love it.

Wait. Earth? What the hell does that mean?? I’m pretty sure that’s not a god. Someone look that up. Bob - check it out. Yes, you Bob! Waiting….waiting….waiting. What’s that, Bob? It’s an English/German name that just means “ground”?? What?? Comes from the Old English words ‘eor(th)e’ and ‘ertha’?? Oh, that’s exciting. Very sexy. Visit Earth, the ground planet. Great. Well, I think we found our weak link, fellas. Gonna need to call in the naming folks at Catchword Branding and get them workin’ on a new “god” name……..what’s that Bob? Oh, you think the name has merit? That we don’t need to develop a new name?? Oh really? Guys, get a load of this. Bob thinks the name “Earth” ain’t so bad. And why’s that Bob? Please, enlighten us. Yeah, yeah, I get the association with things natural and organic. Right, I know, it’s one syllable, and yes, I get that it references the terrestrial nature of the planet, that it’s not a gas giant like Jupiter. And true, it’s distinctive among the other planet names, but we’ve got the opportunity to create a naming system here, Bob. It’s not a system if only 7 out of the 8 planets are named for gods. Don’t you get that?? If there were something particularly unique about Earth, about our plans for that brand, sure, maybe we’d want to give it a special name. But I’m not seeing it. Look, I’m not gonna sit here an debate this with you all day, Bob. Let’s call in a naming expert to provide an opinion on this. Like I said, give the guys at Catchword Branding a call. For Pete’s sake, Bob, I don’t know the number off the top of my head! Get it off their website. And be quick about it. We’re already 4 weeks behind in our planning and I wanna explore alternative name options for Earth concurrent with the solar system negotiation. Which reminds me, if the guys at Catchword Branding ask, we need this name like yesterday, assuming they agree it makes sense to change Earth’s name. No, Bob, don’t tell them why we’re inquiring, just get a quote. Man, why did I ever go into management?

Of course no real point to this post other than to raise awareness about the Earth name, where it came from, and that, of the major planets, it’s the only non-god name in the solar system. Astronomy’s cool.

Tags: naming architecture, naming system, planet naming, Product Naming
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On the drive home from backpacking near Yosemite the other weekend, my friends and I had the good luck to catch a glimpse of this creative example of brand name creation. Unfortunately, we weren’t quite hungry enough to be convinced.

Pizza joints (and coffee shops for that matter) fall into this sort of naming with remarkable ease and seemingly endlesss variation. In that respect, U-Kneada Pizza’s got it all - a pun and a play on an exaggerated Italian accent in the tagline.

Tags: food naming, Fun stuff, pizza naming
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I know six pregnant women right now – so baby names are a popular topic. They are fielding suggestions from all sorts of different sources (my cousin’s three year old son came up with a brilliant name for his in-utero sister: Avalina Shoppinglist.) The baby-naming conversation always makes me think of my parents’ struggle to decide on a name for my sister.

Twenty-two years ago, when my mom was about eight months pregnant with my sister, my parents threw a party. They had a huge chalkboard in the hallway that had originally hung in an elementary school classroom, and asked the guests to write down some suggestions for my unborn little sister. Had it been left up to the party-goers, she might have been named Chi-Cha, Cayenne, Polyester-Cloroxa, Banana-Rama or Quasar-Pulsar. My sister was born and my parents couldn’t settle on on the right name for two weeks until finally “Baby Girl” was named Tessa. “I could have used a naming expert,” my mom said recently.

Had my parents know about the three golden rules of baby naming (defined by Catchword’s resident baby naming expert, Burt Alper) they might have pursued a slightly different path in naming my sister. In short, Burt suggests keeping the naming candidates to oneself during pregnancy (feedback is generally all negative before birth and all positive afterwards) and narrowing it down to 2-3 names before the birth (but not deciding beforehand). He also warns against naming your baby what you wish you had been named.

The challenges people face in naming their children are not unrelated to those found in coming up with company names and product branding. The name you might pull out of the blue as the most distinctive and beautiful has certainly been thought of. A name that’s too popular won’t let your company, product or child stand apart from the crowd. On the other hand, having a highly unusual name that no one understands (Polyester-Cloroxa?) or that is difficult to pronounce or spell can be equally problematic. So it’s a big decision either way – but the aforementioned naming rules should help, and you can always give your favorite naming experts a call.

Tags: baby naming
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Stampede (great product name!) is a home-grown vitamin-enhanced beer out of Dallas, Texas. So it’s no surprise that Jessica Simpson is their newest spokesperson - and an investor, too. She now owns 15% of the company that was founded by Larry Schwartz. Did I mention that Catchword worked on the product name? Simpson says, “I work out and take care of myself. But I also like a cold beer once in a while. That’s why I made the smart choice with a smart beer. Stampede Light, it’s beer plus.”

I’m not sure who the target audience for Stampede Light might be - people who forget to take their vitamins with breakfast? - but having a celebrity spokesperson never hurts. It’s great to see the Stampede brand getting some well-deserved attention!

Tags: beer naming, beverage naming, drink naming
Posted in Brand Naming, Catchword, Fun stuff, Product Naming | 1 Comment

This is the way the founders of Café Gratitude (a SF Bay area restaurant which offers raw, vegan, organic fare) might hope your interaction with the server goes:
Server: How are you feeling today?
You: I am Sensational and Beautiful!

What could happen:
Server: We’re all out of Sensational, could I offer you Dazzling instead? Perhaps some Heroic on the side?
You: Well, how about I am Eternally Blessed.

Here in the world of brand naming we are constantly looking for names that evoke a certain feeling and that are fun to say. Café Gratitude has taken this ideal to the extreme form – where ordering lunch becomes an exercise in self-affirmations. What’s more, mantras for personal manifestation are offered by the wait staff. An excerpt from their menu includes:
I am insightful (spring rolls $10)
I am elated (enchilada special $15)
I am bright-eyed (pecan porridge $8.50)

It can be a struggle to keep a straight face when ordering. The idea is that ordering something like, ”I am lusciously awake” will manifest itself as a more awake state of mind simply through your verbalization and consumption of food product. Yet this sort of strategic brand naming is not unheard of – or even uncommon. We buy a lot of things based on the appeal of their associations, and for the promise of how they might change us. I know I’m hoping to be little more like J.Lo when I buy her fashion and who’s to say there’s not the promise of greater sex appeal when you pick up a copy of Allure?

There is a lot of messaging going on in Café Gratitude, but what the restaurant doesn’t exude is its skillful product and food branding. The pivotal gimmick, although shrouded in New Age-speak, comes down to the marketing and a well-executed naming architecture - “I am insightful” indeed.

Tags: Brand Naming, Branding, Food Branding, food naming
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