How to Name Your Company

Naming process from the Lunour studio, with the criteria and screening steps written out

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A long-form naming playbook by the founder of the Lunour branding studio, covering why a name compounds, what separates a working name from friction, and the process the studio runs on client naming projects. It is positioned explicitly as the cheap version of what firms like Lexicon Branding charge 75,000 to 200,000 dollars for, and it uses real client work (Nerd Crawler renamed to Raremarq) as the worked example. The author also packaged the process as a downloadable skill linked at the end of the article.

For an agent

Use this as the reference process when a user asks you to generate company, product, or feature names, instead of free-associating a list of twenty words. The article was converted into a distributable skill, so check whether that skill is already installed before you re-derive the method from prose. Pair it with a real availability check (domain, trademark, app-store handle) because the playbook covers judgment, not screening infrastructure.

Why it is here. Naming advice online is mostly listicles; this is a practitioner process with pricing context and a named client outcome behind it.

Install command, framework, licence and component list.

Facts

License: No license file
Pricing: Free, Free but account required
Framework: Not applicable
Styling: Not applicable
Distribution: Article, thread, or post, Agent skill / rules pack
Platform: Web, Social / marketing creative
Content type: Prose / writing
Agent readiness: Agent skill or rules pack, Login required
Accessibility: Not applicable
Maturity: Stable

Notable for

studio naming process
Lexicon Branding cost benchmark
Raremarq rename case study
packaged as an installable skill

Source summary, @scott_bair

237,000 views

Aim for the 'tension zone' (half the team loves it, half hates it) over the 'invisible zone' (everyone says 'that's fine') — Andy Grove approved Pentium precisely because it was polarizing, which means it has energy.
Never name after what the product does; climb the benefit ladder feature → functional → emotional → ultimate, and name from the top rung (a PM tool's ultimate benefit is 'clarity', not 'project management').
The first and most important decision is what you are NOT: map 20 competitors, identify the dominant naming patterns in the category, and rule them off-limits.
Generate far more candidates than feels reasonable — target 300+ minimum (agencies run 2,000+); most founders fail by picking the least offensive of 50.
Sound carries meaning: hard consonants (K, T, P) read strong and precise, soft sounds (L, M, S) read smooth; V is the most daring letter — Vercel was built from versatile + accelerate + excel to replace the unspellable Zeit.
Test by asking 10-15 people one-on-one 'what does this make you feel?' — never 'do you like it?' — and avoid focus groups, which optimize for consensus and push you into invisibility.
Score finalists on distinctiveness, processing fluency, emotional resonance, energy and longevity, but pick the 9-10 on distinctiveness and energy over the balanced all-7s: remarkable beats balanced.
Renaming pre-Series B is cheap and generates PR energy; the claim is no marketplace evidence exists for losing 'name equity', and the real risk is a decade of daily friction.
AI has shifted the advantage from generation to judgment — it produces 200-300 candidates in minutes but cannot sense energy or tension, and first-pass output is bland without the earlier strategy phases.
Practical constraints: 1-3 syllables (2 ideal), invented words must obey the target language's phonetic rules, and .com matters less than a decade ago but still matters in B2B.

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Provenance

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