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Is Wordtree a brand naming agency?

Yes, Wordtree is a brand naming agency. We’ve created names and naming systems for organisations including Standard Life, Parkinson’s UK and Sea Arch.

Why work with a brand naming agency?

The name you give an organisation – or one of its products or services – tells your customers, potential customers and the rest of the world a great deal about your brand and what you stand for.

It’s often the first contact a potential customer will have with your brand. So you need to give the right impression of who you are and what you’re like to work with. There are practical considerations and legal requirements to take into account too. Your name has to work in all the regions your organisation operates in – and any it would like to move into in the future. And if you work in a regulated sector, it may need to comply with specific regulation.

This is why simply getting a few of your team in a room to throw ideas around often doesn’t produce robust names that successfully make it through the checking process. However, when you work with a brand naming agency like Wordtree, you get a structured, brand-aligned approach to creating a name. You get multiple options to choose from. And ultimately you end up with a name that will work for your organisation and help it to achieve its strategic objectives.

You might find this blog post interesting: Things to bear in mind when you’re naming a brand.

How does Wordtree approach naming projects?

We take an in-depth approach to naming. First, we carry out research into your brand, your marketplace and your competitors. This could involve interviews with key stakeholders, reading and analysing any documentation you share with us and reviewing any naming conventions your organisation already follows – or common approaches to naming in your sector.

Based on all of this information, we identify several themes to explore. We do this in a creative workshop – either with your teams or in our studio. We then develop a report and recommendations based on the outputs of the workshop. This outlines the name options we’ve created for each theme alongside our rationale for suggesting them.

We always give you multiple options. And we strongly recommend you don’t get your heart set on just one until you’ve secured the IP and associated registrations for it.

No. Our role is the creative side of the naming process. We do carry out top-level desk research on availability and cultural considerations – but we then hand the list over to your legal teams to do the necessary IP checks.

We highly recommend you carry out detailed global searches and trademark your shortlisted names as soon as possible. We also suggest registering a domain and securing the social media handles for them, if needed.

How long does it take to create a new name?

Many organisations leave naming a new product or service to the last minute. But we’s suggest giving yourself as much time as possible. The amount of time it takes to create naming options depends on your organisation, your brand and the number of stakeholders involved. But in all cases, creating a robust, brand-aligned set of names takes time – as does the extensive checking process your legal teams will need to follow before you can confidently start using your new name.

What is a naming system?

A naming system is a common approach to naming everything in an organisation. It makes sure everything in your organisation is aligned to your brand and feels part of the same family.

Typically, a Wordtree naming system is a framework that anyone in your organisation can use to decide if a potential name is right for your brand. It includes a process to follow to create and test names and it takes any legal or regulatory restrictions, cultural preferences and physical restrictions – such as length – into account.

Why have a naming system?

If your organisation has multiple products, services and other things to name, it makes sense to have a system in place to make sure they all reinforce your brand and what you stand for.

A naming system makes it easy to decide if a name is right for your organisation – or not. It streamlines the naming process and gives your teams a framework to work within.  And it makes sure your products and services all fit into a family of names that’s easily recognisable to your customers and potential customers.

What kinds of things does Wordtree name?

Everything from organisations, products and services to teams, job titles, buildings and meeting rooms. We’ve also named employee engagement and customer service initiatives and processes. Essentially, we can help you name absolutely anything in your organisation.

What does a Wordtree naming workshop look like?

If you ask us to run a naming workshop in your organisation, it will be bespoke – and we’ll work with you to develop the session so it’s exactly right for you. However, there are a few things that are common to all of our naming workshops:

  1. We encourage you to invite colleagues from across your organisation to get as many perspectives in the room as possible.
  2. We suggest holding the workshop off-site – or at least, in a different space to the one you normally work in.
  3. We create a series of fast-paced creative exercises – based on the themes we identify before the session – and take participants through them.
  4. We record everything and share the outputs with you in a report, alongside a long list of possible names.

To find out more about our approach to brand naming workshops, read our blog.

How much does naming cost?

We price by project – so please do give us a call to discuss. As a guideline, developing brand names can be a lengthy, complex process and depending on your requirements and circumstances, could take several days or weeks.