Naming

For what's real but
hasn't found its name
— yet.

The problem

Naming is really hard. With the whole world of language at your fingertips, you can know what you're offering and still not find the perfect way to say it. You get an idea, and it's taken. You get another, and someone doesn't like it. And the more you generate, the further you can feel from the original essence.

It's maddening.

What I do

I hear it — the right name, the wrong name, the one that's almost right but carries the wrong weight. The way a word sits against a thing. I know before I can explain.

I've done over a hundred naming assignments in almost a decade — new names and renames, category creation, product naming. Most of that at PS212, one of the country's leading brand naming agencies. Clients have included Google, CVS Health, GE, and ACLU.

For founders, startups, and brand leads who need the name to be right, not just good enough — whether it's your own thing or the fourth round of someone else's.

What I'm offering
Late-Round Naming

About a week. $2,000.

Sometimes the rounds have already happened. The brief was thorough. The work came back, and adjusted, and came back again. Close enough to keep going. Wrong enough that nothing lands. That's usually when I get the call — not at the start, at the end, when the list is long. What's needed isn't just more options. It's the right few, and the reason they're right. Tell me what you're naming and when you need it.

What you get
The names, and the rationale.
  • Names — not fifty — with the rationale for each, in a document you can circulate.
  • Preliminary screening — public domain and commercial search, so you know what's obviously blocked before anyone falls in love. Not formal clearance.
  • An audio walkthrough — not a deck — so you can listen on your own time and hear the case the way I'd make it in the room. When you're the one presenting it upstairs, you've already got it.
Email me →
A Namer's Ear

One hour. $500.

You've got a few names and none of them feel quite right. A whole naming project isn't always necessary — maybe it's too soon, or maybe you're closer than you think. We read your names out loud, together, and find what's making the wrong ones wrong. Bring everything you've considered — even the half-formed, even the ones you've crossed out.

(This session works through what you have. It's not generating from scratch.)

What you get
The read, and the reasoning.
  • A namer's read on what you've got, with the reasoning: what landed, what went flat, and what it tells you about the name you're actually looking for. We write it down as we go, so you leave with it.
  • A way to judge names from authentic judgment, not reactive criticism — so you can trust your own ear next time.
  • New ways of looking at your names, and directions worth exploring — even if the exact name isn't there yet.

Looking for something more? Email me.

Named along the way

I name things for a living. Some of them, no one asked me to — concepts I kept running into, in the work and in my own life, that no existing language could quite hold. So I named them.

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