Founder stories love a napkin name. Survivorship hides the ten names that died in clearance.
Films about ads treat naming as inspiration. Operations treat it as a spreadsheet.
Rituals
- The naming workshop — Stickies and vowels.
- The legal kill meeting — The true ceremony.
- The reveal to staff — A christening for a non-person.
- The first lost-and-found of pronunciation — Podcasts will mangle it — plan a key.
Portrayals
- Mad Men TV · 2007 · Matthew Weiner
Pitch-room naming as theatre — fiction’s consultancy.
- The Social Network Film · 2010 · David Fincher
A fight over a name and a mark as origin myth.
- Thank You for Smoking Film · 2005 · Jason Reitman
Word-work as moral hazard — cousin to brand language.
- The Founder Film · 2016 · John Lee Hancock
A family name becoming a system mark.
- Halt and Catch Fire TV · 2014 · Cantwell & Rogers
Product names as era costumes.
Sayings
The good ones are taken
Namer proverb
The whole difficulty score.
It’s descriptive — we can’t own it
Counsel proverb
Doctrine in one sigh.
Don’t fall in love
Clearance proverb
Emotional regulation as craft.
Call it what it is
Anti-coinage camp
A valid opposite strategy with legal costs.
Culture will keep lying that the name was the magic. The file that was empty was the magic.