Business Naming Basics

There are several letter combinations that are unusual for word beginnings. Unusual, but not so foreign that folks don’t know how to spell and pronounce the words in which those combinations normally appear. I call them bi-letters

So what are some of those bi-letters that can help you create unique names? First, they’re all consonants. Second, they’re not Anglo-derived. Here are those I’ve identified along with a common word using them.

Cz czar
Dh dharma
Dj Djakarta
Dw dwarf
Gh ghost
Gn gnarl
Kh khaki
Kl klieg
Pn pneumonia
Ps psychic
Pt ptarmigan
Rh rhythym
Ry rye

There are two approaches to using bi-letters as name beginnings.

First, go through your list of descriptor words you’ve already identified as appropriate to what you’re naming and look for those with the same sound as one of the bi-letters. Note that the first letter after the bi-letter should be a vowel. This is an example of deliberate misspelling to achieve uniqueness.

Second, just add a vowel and a consonant after a bi-letter to form a new, short word that could become a coined name, or the first syllable of potential name. This technique creates coined words that people can read and pronounce with confidence.

Whenever you come across bi-letters, put them in your naming aids notebook.

(Don’t have a naming aids notebook? If you’re planning to name more than one business, product, service, event or destination, I suggest your begin one now. If it’s a 3-hole notebook, you can go through these blogs and copy and print the tips I’ve provided. That would be a pretty good beginning.)

Related business naming posts:

1. Business Naming Using Common Roots Coined names which start from a root word that is relevant to the product, service or business being named can...
2. Business Naming And Linguistics – Plosives Business names beginning with a plosive are only slightly more popular than those beginning with other letters. Yet it’s worth...
3. Business Naming Posts From Other Naming Blogs – August 4, 2009 Company naming, product naming and naming resources covered this week...
4. Synthetic Company Naming Suffixes And Prefixes Almost all the suffixes and prefixes we use in English come from the Latin or Greek. But for business naming,...
5. Name Generators for Naming Ideas Name generators can help you populate long name candidate lists delivered from a variety of sources. ...

Tags: Naming Ideas // Add Comment »