According to research data from the American Entrepreneurship Association, 72% of startups need to invest an additional 30% in marketing costs in their first year of operation due to inappropriate brand names to compensate for cognitive gaps, and even 18% of companies are forced to rename due to name infringement, missing their golden development period. For entrepreneurs and business owners, company naming is never simply 'creating a label', but a core decision that determines brand foundation, affects user perception, and relates to business value.
A good company name needs to balance communicability, relevance, and compliance - all three are essential.
The core function of a brand name is to 'be remembered and spread'. Research shows that names composed of 2-4 Chinese characters (6-8 English letters) with smooth pronunciation have 47% higher communication efficiency than complex names.
Avoid tone conflicts and rare pronunciations, such as 'Alibaba' and 'Tencent', which are easy to pronounce and spread in spoken language without ambiguity.
Reject lengthy phrase combinations, such as 'XX City XX District XX Technology Development Co., Ltd.', and need to extract abbreviations for external communication (such as 'ByteDance' rather than the full name).
The name needs to make users perceive the brand's core business or value at first glance, reducing cognitive costs. But avoid being overly limited, leaving room for business expansion.
Such as 'Meituan' (beautiful group buying, aligned with local life) and 'SF Express' (smooth and fast, highlighting logistics attributes).
If initially doing 'XX Fresh', and wanting to expand into catering and retail in the future, the name will limit business boundaries. You can choose neutral words like 'Hema'.
This is the most error-prone aspect of company naming. Data shows that China's annual trademark rejection rate reaches 35%, of which 60% is due to names being similar to existing trademarks or violating the Trademark Law. Core requirements: Need to confirm through the National Intellectual Property Administration trademark search system that the name has no registered or pending similar trademarks in the corresponding industry (category); at the same time, avoid prohibited words (such as 'China', 'National', 'International', etc., requiring special approval) and sensitive words, ensuring consistency between business registration and trademark registration.
First sort out 3 key questions: Who does the brand serve? What is the core business? What is the differentiated advantage? For example, trendy toy brands targeting young groups can lean towards lively and personalized names; technology brands targeting government and enterprise customers need professional and stable names.
Combine positioning with divergent thinking to generate 20-30 candidate names, which can adopt 3 approaches:
Extract from business scenarios and value points, such as 'Xiaomi' (close to the people, down-to-earth, aligned with mass consumer goods).
Such as 'Baidu' (derived from 'searching for him thousands of times', combining cultural sense with search attributes).
Combine word roots or create words, such as 'Huawei' (China has potential) and 'Byte' (data unit, aligned with technology attributes), with strong uniqueness and easy registration.
Conduct 3 rounds of screening on the candidate pool: ① Eliminate names with complex pronunciation and glyphs; ② Eliminate names similar to competitor names and easily confused; ③ Verify availability through trademark search and business name verification tools (local market supervision bureau websites), retaining 3-5 alternatives.
Invite target users and team members to participate in testing: After verbally mentioning the name, ask the other party to repeat and associate the business. If more than 80% of people can accurately repeat and the association aligns with positioning, it is qualified.
Prioritize registering core category trademarks (such as technology categories registering Class 9 and 35), while registering domain names and WeChat public account names, forming unified 'trademark + domain + social account' names to avoid later squatting.
The name is concise (2 characters), with smooth pronunciation. 'Dou' (shake) aligns with the dynamic sense of short videos, and 'Yin' (sound) relates to audio attributes, accurately conveying product scenarios. At the same time, there are no rare characters, easy to remember for users of all ages, laying the foundation for subsequent globalization (TikTok).
Although the name has cultural sense, 'Mengqi' has awkward pronunciation, and the 4-character combination has high memory costs. Ordinary parents find it difficult to quickly understand the business. Moreover, because 'Ruizhi' is similar to existing early education brands, trademark registration was rejected, and all early marketing investments were wasted after forced renaming.
Not required, but recommended. If inconsistent, it can easily lead to user cognitive confusion (such as company name 'XX Technology', trademark name 'YY'); and business registration name does not represent trademark rights, only trademark registration can obtain legal protection.
Need to be cautious. Unauthorized use of celebrity names may constitute infringement; administrative division place names at county level or above (such as 'Beijing', 'Shanghai') cannot be used as trade names, unless they have other meanings or historical usage (requiring special approval).
Yes, but the process is cumbersome and costly. Need to change all related documents including business registration, trademarks, domain names, contracts, qualifications, etc. It is recommended to spend more time screening in the early stage to avoid later renaming.
Not recommended. Although rare characters are unique, users don't recognize or write them, affecting oral communication and online search (input methods can't type them), which actually reduces brand exposure efficiency.
Company naming is work that 'strategy first, details implementation'. The core is balancing communicability, relevance, and compliance, both aligning with the brand's current positioning and leaving sufficient space for future development. Remember: A good name is the brand's first business card, helping you save marketing costs and quickly build user trust. Now combine the techniques in this article, sort out your brand positioning, and generate a candidate name pool! If uncertain about name availability, it is recommended to consult professional trademark agencies to avoid legal risks and let the brand win from the starting point.
More naming techniques and cultural analysis