"Spent 3 months finalizing the brand name, but it was rejected after trademark registration submission, all early promotion investment went down the drain" - this is a real experience from a startup founder. According to China Trademark Office 2025 public data, the annual trademark application rejection rate is as high as 32%, with 60% of rejections due to improper trademark naming, either lacking distinctiveness or conflicting with prior rights.
Quality trademark names are a combination of 'registrable, memorable, strongly associated, and extensible' - all are essential.
This is the bottom line of trademark naming. According to the Trademark Law, text and graphics identical or similar to national names, national flags, national emblems, etc. cannot be used, and must avoid similarity with registered or pending trademarks. For example, a tea beverage brand wanted to name '蜜雪冰城+' (Mixue Ice Cream & Tea+), but was directly rejected due to similarity with the prior registered '蜜雪冰城' (Mixue Ice Cream & Tea). It is recommended to conduct similarity searches through the Trademark Office official website and professional agency platforms in the early naming stage to reduce rejection risk.
Generic names or descriptive terms cannot obtain strong protection and are difficult to stand out in the market. American Trademark Association research shows that distinctive coined word trademarks (such as '华为' Huawei, '谷歌' Google) have 47% higher brand recognition than generic word trademarks. Entrepreneurs can adopt methods like 'coined word + industry attribute' or 'homophonic innovation', such as '字节跳动' (ByteDance), which has no inherent meaning but can associate with the digital field, combining uniqueness and relevance.
Trademark names should indirectly convey brand core business or value, helping users quickly establish cognition. For example, '顺' (smooth), '丰' (abundant), '速' (speed) in '顺丰速运' (SF Express) directly relate to the express industry's efficient and safe attributes; '小红书' (Xiaohongshu) conveys enthusiasm and sharing through '红色' (red), fitting the content community positioning. Avoid names completely disconnected from business, which increases brand communication costs.
Brand development often breaks through single categories, so naming needs to avoid overly specific terms. For example, '小米' (Xiaomi) which initially made phones has no industry limitations in the name, and later smoothly extended to home appliances, IoT and other fields; if it had been named '小米手机' (Xiaomi Phone) initially, subsequent category expansion would be limited by name cognition.
First clarify brand core positioning, target audience, and industry competitor naming styles. For example, if competitors mostly use Chinese two-character words, consider differentiation with three-character words or Chinese-English combinations; simultaneously organize industry prohibited words and similar high-frequency words to avoid ineffective brainstorming.
Organize team to brainstorm from product characteristics, value propositions, cultural meanings, homophonic associations and other angles, each person outputs 10-20 names, then eliminate obviously non-compliant and unrelated options after summary. For example, high-end beauty products can extend around words like '奢, 润, 肌' (luxury, moist, skin), tech products can focus on directions like '极, 芯, 云' (extreme, chip, cloud).
Combining the four principles, screen candidate names with both compliance potential and communicability, prioritize retaining a combination of 2 coined words + 1 innovative combination word + 1 Chinese + 1 English, leaving alternatives for subsequent registration.
Conduct full-category similarity searches for candidate names (core categories must check, related categories recommended to check), not only check text similarity, but also pronunciation and graphic similarity. If a name has no conflict in core categories, it can be prioritized; if there is slight conflict, can fine-tune text (such as changing '青柠' Qingning to '青柠纪' Qingningji) then search again.
For the final 2-3 candidate names, conduct small-scale testing with target audience, research name memorability, favorability, and association, determine final name based on test results.
At certain times words like '网红' (internet celebrity), '爆款' (hot product) become popular, many brands follow suit in naming, leading to sharp increase in similarity rate and extremely low registration success rate. Moreover, trendy words have strong timeliness and are easily eliminated by the market.
If the brand has overseas expansion plans, need to check name meanings in target market languages. For example, a domestic home appliance brand 'Haier' (海尔) has no negative meaning overseas, while some brands directly translate Chinese names but unexpectedly correspond to foreign derogatory terms, affecting overseas promotion.
Such as 'XX果汁' (XX Juice), 'XX服装' (XX Clothing), such names are difficult to obtain trademark exclusive rights, even if registration succeeds, cannot prevent competitors from using similar terms, losing brand differentiation advantage.
Not recommended. Unauthorized use of celebrity names may constitute infringement; place names of administrative divisions at or above county level, and foreign place names known to the public generally cannot be used as trademarks, unless the place name has other meanings or has been registered as a collective trademark or certification trademark.
Recommend separate registration. If registered together, if one part does not meet registration requirements, the entire application will be rejected; separate registration can obtain protection individually, can be used in combination or separately when in use, with higher flexibility.
No. After successful trademark registration, core elements such as text and graphics cannot be modified. If adjustment is needed, need to submit a new trademark application. Therefore, naming stage requires repeated confirmation to avoid subsequent adjustment costs.
Not absolutely. Coined words have high registration success rate and broad protection scope, but high initial communication costs; common words (need to have distinctiveness) have strong communicability, but high registration risk. Need to choose based on brand positioning, startup brands can prioritize coined words or innovative combination words.
Trademark naming is not a 'brainstorm' creativity, but systematic work balancing legal compliance, brand communication, and long-term development. The core is to maintain the 'legality' bottom line, grasp the key points of 'uniqueness' and 'relevance', and screen out optimal names through scientific practical steps. For corporate legal and intellectual property advisors, recommend incorporating trademark naming into early stages of brand compliance system; for entrepreneurs, might as well proceed according to the five-step method in this article, seek professional agency assistance for searches when necessary to reduce registration risks. Now organize your brand positioning and start the first wave of trademark naming brainstorming - a quality trademark name will become a 'bonus point' on the brand growth path, building a solid foundation for subsequent brand protection and market expansion.
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