How to Filter Out Naming Risks and Conflicts

Nothing ruins a great name like learning you can't use it. Let’s talk about what stands in the way of a name’s successful use in the market, and what you can do to help your favorite names win.

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Let's look at the types of risk that you might filter for in your naming projects.

There is immense value in understanding the potential downsides of a name—not just for your client, but for the audience they want to reach, and the business you’re running.

For each of the seven gates of naming risk, we'll cover:

Why it's worth it to filter for that type of risk

The question you should ask at the start of each engagement to make sure everyone is aligned about how to handle it

The tools, experts, and resources you can count on to help you uncover risk in that area

Strategies to know about

If you can't be pretty sure a name doesn’t obviously infringe on the rights of names that are already registered, you shouldn't recommend it.

A few strategies and tools to support your efforts to eliminate obvious risks.

Explore a trademark database to understand the basics of how trademarks are registered.

If you offend audiences, give them a name they don't know how to pronounce, or say something (unintentionally) that doesn't support the rest of your brand building, you're going to have a hard time convincing them that you respect them.

Some creative strategies for names with *a little extra baggage* and a few watchouts as you check names for issues.

How to search for potential issues with a name that aren’t necessarily going to arise through your trademark or linguistic evaluations.

A negative or unintended cultural connotation doesn’t have to be disqualifying.

Common-law trademarks give brands protections for non-registered uses of trademarks: if they’ve used a name in association with selling their goods and services, they might have some ability to claim some ownership over it.

Let’s learn about what that means.

A mindshare issue can involve using language that comes across as riding a competitor’s coattails, or being a copycat—even when that competitor doesn’t technically “own” the language you’re using.

Understand what associations audiences are likely to make as you make your naming recommendations.

Namers hate dot com domain requirements :)

Creative ideas for getting around dot com availability.

Sometimes, the thing that could make or break a name isn't anything you're accustomed to look for. 

It's good to pause at the start of a project and ask yourself and your client what that might be, and factor this either into your search, or to flag to your client that that step might fall to them. 

My personal preferences for prioritizing potential conflicts.

When and why do we actually want to do naming research?

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