Brand naming – take care to get well born
8th October 2025
Brand naming should never be an afterthought. A name is often the very first connection between your business and the world, and it’s the spark that makes people take notice, remember you, and come back for more. The right name isn’t just part of a logo; it sets the stage for your entire brand story.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote: “Take the utmost care to get well born and well brought up.” And this couldn’t be more apt in brand naming.
For brands, being “well born” starts with the name. Get it right, and your brand has a strong foundation to grow on. Get it wrong, and you may end up explaining yourself, causing confusion, or – worst of all – being overlooked.
Brand naming is both an art and a science because it’s about striking the balance between imagination and practicality, creativity and strategy. At Angle, we’ve helped many organisations find names that not only sound good but work hard.
What makes a great brand name?
A strong brand name should be:
- Attention-grabbing – it cuts through the noise and makes people curious.
- Meaningful – it should say something about who you are and what you stand for.
- Practical – it works in the real world: it can be trademarked, easily pronounced, remembered and found online.
The digital layer is especially important. Not so long ago, naming only had to work on your printed communications and signage, but today, your brand name has to live everywhere: websites, social channels, apps, even hashtags. That’s why part of our process at Angle includes checking the availability of top-level domain names. If your ideal name is already taken online, it can make it harder for customers to find (and trust) you.
Brand naming is more than wordplay
It’s easy to think brand naming is just clever wordplay, and sure, wordsmithing is part of the creativity. But the real magic happens when a name captures both the head and the heart and balances clarity and creativity. If a name feels good to say, is easy to remember, and carries your brand story forward, that’s when it moves beyond a label and becomes an asset.
Take some of the world’s most iconic brand names, like Xerox, Sellotape, Uber and Google. They’re not just clever inventions. They stick; they’re memorable and they’ve merged into everyday conversation as new verbs. They feel alive because they’re built with both creativity and strategy.
Some brand naming examples by Angle
The Tennis Tutor was top of Angle’s shortlist and the client agreed, saying ‘love the name’. It does what it says and the alliteration with the letter ‘T’ makes the name memorable. What Angle is especially proud of is creating a name that really captures the brand that says welcome to a fun, inclusive and inspiring way to learn tennis for all ages and all levels. Read case study.
Mote provide real-time data to solve environmental issues relating to air quality, water quality and more. They problem solve, then deploy and monitor state-of-the-art sensors, analysers, and networks in urban, rural, and remote locations. A mote means a small particle. A mote is also a sensor node – a connection point in a sensor network that is capable of performing some processing, gathering sensory information and communicating with other connected nodes in the network. A great name for this international team of experts. Read case study. Go to Mote website.
O’LEX is a civil construction company based in Victoria, Australia who came to Angle for a rebrand. From the very first logo sketch, Angle wanted to keep a strong family connection in the new name. By shortening their original name (O’Loughlin Excavations) to O’LEX we achieved exactly that. The apostrophe was key – keeping it made a reference to O’Loughlin and it also meant that people were more likely to pronounce ‘Oh-Lex’ rather than ‘Olex’. Read case study.
Prospero suggests wealth, prosperity, growth and success. This startup consultancy was launched by an ex-lawyer to help companies enter new markets, widen their reach and grow their businesses. To Angle, the name was a great fit, but what we didn’t know until we presented it, was that Shakespeare’s The Tempest was our client’s favourite book. Read case study.
Angle is a branding and design agency in Auckland, New Zealand. Naming our own business was an interesting challenge. We had to self impose a deadline and be as objective as we could. Angle captured the right feelings, had relevant connotations and the top level (.co.nz) domain was available. As it turned out, the name was a gift to interpret visually in the logo.
How does Angle approach brand naming?
We approach brand naming as a collaborative adventure. Together with our clients, we dig into the essence of the brand – its story, its audience, its ambitions. We explore wide-ranging ideas, test them, refine them, and run them through practical filters (legal checks, linguistic quirks, domain name searches). Qualitative testing can also feed into the process to gather unbiased options and to sense-check shortlisted names. The result: names that don’t just sound right, but are right.
At the end of the day, good brand naming sets you up for success. Treat it with care, and it will carry you further than you can imagine. At Angle, we make sure your brand is not only well born, but also well brought up to thrive in a competitive world.
If you want to build a strong brand, contact Angle. With our simplified business model, you deal directly with the people doing the work. It’s a low risk, agile approach that makes your money go further.
