The Brand Names Report 2024, created by Rob Meyerson

Created by Rob Meyerson
February 2024
The Brand Names Report
© Rob Meyerson

Introduction
About the data (caveats)
Executive summary
Overview of ﬁndings
Findings by naming construct
● Real-word names
● Coined names
● Compound names
● Abbreviated names
Renaming vs. new names
Final notes
2 The Brand Names Report | © Rob Meyerson February 2024
Contents

3
Introduction
The Brand Names Report | © Rob Meyerson February 2024
Welcome to the inaugural Brand Names Report.
The idea for this report came from a simple desire
to satisfy my curiosity about data collected on
Brand New, the leading brand identity review site
edited and written by Armin Vit. Brand New
visitors*
are frequently invited to vote on brand
names—either new brands or rebrands—via polls
at the bottom of brand identity reviews.
From July 2020 to June 2023, visitors to the site
cast a total of 22,769 votes across 131 brand
names, rating each as Great, Fine, or Bad. These
polls are the only easily available opinion data on
brand names that I’m aware of. And while the data
is far from perfect (see “About the data: caveats”
on the next page), I wanted to see whether it
could tell us anything useful about which brand
names are preferred, and why.
Granted, looking at how names names perform on
a scale of Bad to Great won’t necessarily help us
answer a far more important question: How
effective are these names in the marketplace?
To answer that, we’d want to talk to the target
audience for each name, not Brand New visitors.
And ideally, we’d want to see how that audience
behaves in response to the names or how they
feel about them after a fair amount of time has
passed—not their self reported, initial reaction.
For all these reasons, it’s tempting to take
everything in this report with a grain of salt.
However, interestingly, many of the findings herein
support common naming wisdom. Shorter names
are preferred. Acronyms and initial-based names
rate poorly. And, where additional data is readily
available, it mostly corroborates what I found in
the Brand New data set. A scraped-together list of
over 10,000 brand names shows similar results for
the average length of names and the frequency of
initial letters.
Luckily, I’m not looking for statistical significance in
the Brand Names Report—just some directional
evidence about what affects opinions of brand
names, what doesn’t, and any discernible trends.
I wouldn’t change my naming approach or client
recommendations based on this report, and I
don’t recommend you do. But I don’t think it hurts
to know that (if these findings are accurate) over
50% of brand names begin with just 7 letters of
the alphabet (see pages 13 and 14).
This is just a start. I hope to augment future
editions of this report with additional data from
Brand New as well as other sources. In the
meantime, I hope you find this version interesting
and useful. If you have questions or ideas for ways
to improve the report, please get in touch.
Thanks,
Rob Meyerson
* In August 2020, Brand New became a subscriber-only site.

4
About the data: caveats
Brand New data
● Brand New can’t possibly capture every new or
replaced brand name that enters the market. (In fact,
if a new name lacks an accompanying visual identity, I
doubt it would be included on Brand New.)
● Frustratingly, not every “new name” post on Brand
New includes a poll about the name.
● Only subscribers can vote on names, resulting in a
relatively small population of respondents.* Most
voters are probably designers who have strong
opinions about branding and rebrands, not to
mention personal and professional biases. This is not
a representative sample of global citizens or
potential customers.
● Some names received very few overall votes, making
those poll results even less reliable. For example, a
20-person agency could easily sway a poll featuring
their own work if only 10 other people voted. (I’m sure
Brand New doesn’t encourage this, and maybe even
has some measures in place to try to prevent it.)
● Some types of names (e.g., compound names) are
underrepresented in the sample, making it even
harder to draw conclusions.
Larger data set (pgs. 14, 17)
To see whether a larger list of brand names would impact
analyses of name length or initial letter frequency,
I pulled long lists of brand names from multiple online
sources (e.g., Github) and de-duplicated, resulting in a
list of over 10,000 unique names.
● Because the list contains brands I’ve never heard of,
it would be exceedingly difﬁcult for me to “vet” the
list to ensure the brand names are real, that the list
doesn’t contain typos, etc. As a result, the data may
be “noisy.”
● On the shorter list of names from Brand New, I made
strategic decisions about how to represent each
name, e.g., shortening “The Seattle Kraken” to “Kraken”
for the purposes of determining its length and initial
letter. I haven’t done any “cleaning” on the longer list.
English language data (pgs. 13–17)
To compare the frequency of initial letters in brand
names to those in everyday English (pgs. 13, 14), I needed
a relevant corpus. I decided to use an analysis of a list of
common English words available on the website of
Wolfram Research, a software company.
● It’s hard to assess the quality of this data—so far,
I haven’t determined which words are included in
Wolfram’s list of “common English words.”
● I’d be interested in comparing the brand names to a
more complete list of English words (not just
common words), but have not yet done so.
To compare the length of brand names to the length of
words in English (pgs. 16, 17), I used an analysis of the
Google books Ngrams raw data set (from books scanned
by Google) conducted by Peter Norvig, a researcher at
Google.
● Norvig’s analysis includes 97,565 distinct words from
books scanned by Google. It’s not entirely clear to
me whether this is the most relevant corpus to use
for comparison to brand names, as it includes parts
of speech that are typically very short, such as
articles and prepositions. It might be better to
exclude some parts of speech—so far, I haven’t found
an easy way to do that.
* Brand New has over 30,000 subscribers. Total votes on names in
this report range from 2,065 (The Seattle Kraken) to 10 (UFirst).
See page 6 for relevant demographic information.

“At the end of the day, the Brand New naming polls are really beauty
contests, judged by people largely outside these brands’ target
audiences. Who cares what they think?”
Anthony Shore
Chief Operative
Operative Words
Expert commentary

About 60% of Brand New visitors
are 18–34 years old, and another
20% are 35–44. Over 70% are
English speakers, while Chinese and
Spanish each account for over 7%.
Visitors are about evenly split
between male and female.
6
About the data: site visitor demographics
According to Armin Vit, the site currently has over
30,000 subscribers who are eligible to respond to
polls. While polls do not accurately track who
votes, we do have data on who visits the site
(which includes subscribers as well as some
people who are not eligible to vote).
Looking at Google Analytics data from the past
12 months, we can get a rough look at the
demographics of people who are likely
completing the polls.
Gender Age
Language
Legend
Brand New visitors (2023)
Global internet users (2021)*
* Source for global internet user age data: Statista

Preferred names
● 4 of the 5 most-preferred names are 2-syllable real or coined words, suggestive or abstract,
and no longer than 6 characters.*
● Shorter names seem to be preferred, especially for coined names.
● Real-word names (and maybe compounds**
) are slightly preferred over coined.
● Abbreviated names are least preferred versus real, compound, or coined.
Name length
● In larger data set (10,000+ names), most names are 5–10 characters long. Fewer than 10%
are over 14 characters.
● In larger data set, 52% of names are one word, 37% are 2 words, and 11% are 3+ words.
● Median coined name is slightly shorter than real-word or compound names.
Initial letter
● Over 40% of names begin with C, A, P, or S. Frequency of ﬁrst letters loosely tracks with that
found in English.
New name vs. rename
● Entirely new names seem preferred over renamings. Names that result from mergers are
least preferred.
Executive summary: Key ﬁndings
By the numbers
131 names
36 months
22,769 votes
* The outlier is a long, descriptive name, The Avocado Collective,
which was preferred over every other name.
** Only 7 of the 131 names in this data set are compound names.

Overview
of ﬁndings

9
The 131 new names included in this report, organized by total votes on Brand New*
[The Seattle] Kraken
Meta
Stellantis
ITA Airways
[Cleveland] Guardians
[Washington] Commanders
Pearl Milling Company
[St. Louis] City SC
Evri
Going
The Avocado Collective
Multiverse
Alleima
New York City Tourism +
Conventions
92NY
Club de Foot Montréal
Angi
Reveal
NOT Wieden+Kennedy
Ortto
[Edmonton] Elks
Momentive
Third Sphere
Izzzi
YEP
Ostro
JLR
SAVEME
Mylo
CF Montréal
Cosmic Wings
Unzer
Perch
Charlotte FC
Sesimi
Keyloop
Wilder Fields
Mycle
Aplo
Bite
Copi
Pley
Stories & Ink [Tattoo Care]
e&
Onto
Vi
EUSPA
Yelo
Onro
AirJapan
Pelago
CADA
CNN+
[Lexington] Counter Clocks
Beem
By Wind
Plenitude
Freevee
The Best One Yet
[Maine] Celtics
Consequence
Game Developer
Over the Spoon
Elevance [Health]
Wise
eFootball
Elevate
NIQ
Ambio
Veradigm
Palisades Tahoe
Microsoft Bing
Shortcut
GoTo
Paramount+
Toronto Metropolitan
University
Spring
Now
SATO
SLB
Victorian Gambling and
Casino Control Commission
Bill
Altera [Digital Health]
Sprout
Anywhere
Joyce University [of Nursing]
Audacy
TPC
Serandipians
Talloires Network of
Engaged Universities
LL Flooring
Cync
Invited
AM
Forma
City Experiences
[by Hornblower]
Andy
Arcom
Pavilion
Ontra
Wellfound
Humans Being
Altaﬁber
[Tata] Play
Point32Health
Are Media
Breezeline
Brevo
Enovis
Marq
Wondr Health
Duly [Health and Care]
Fresco
Covoya [Specialty Coffee]
Develon
Xactus
Leap
Veryon
UKG
Insiders
Certinia
Workrise
Secret Base
Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts
Entain
Pabio
Radancy
Onoma
Alchemer
Maya
UFirst [Credit Union]
* Names in bold received 200 or more votes.
Names in purple received fewer than 100 votes.

10
Most and least-preferred names, overall
Mostly Great 😃 Mostly Bad 🙁
1. The Avocado
Collective
● New for “Advance Packing & Marketing Services”
● 79% score (324 Great, 2 Bad votes)
● Real-word, descriptive, shorter than prior name
● Created by Block
2. Going ● New name for Scott’s Cheap Flights
● Real-word, suggestive, short
3. Izzzi ● Entirely new name (not a rebrand)
● Coined, abstract, short
● Created by Mirror Mirror
4. Mylo ● New name for MyLotus
● Coined from “MyLotus,” abstract, very short
● Created by Ragged Edge
5. Reveal ● New name for Sharework
● Real-word, suggestive, short
127. Pearl Milling
Company
● New name for Aunt Jemima (offensive)
● -71% score (24 Great, 454 Bad votes)
● Real-word, descriptive (obscure), very long
● Created in-house
128. EUSPA ● New name for EGSA
● Abbreviation, longer than previous name
129. Serandipians* ● New name for Traveller Made
● Coined, long (5 syllables), hard to pronounce
130. Talloires Network
of Engaged
Universities*
● New name for The Talloires Network
● Real-word, very long
131. ITA Airways ● New name for Alitalia
● Abbreviation, replaces well-known name
* Names in purple received fewer than 100 votes.

11
Scores (vote performance) of names with 200 or more total votes
Percentage of votes
100%
The 32 names with 200 total votes or
more show a wide range in scores, from
The Avocado Collective and Going
(78.9%) to ITA Airways (-85.5%). Some
names, like SAVEME and NOT
Wieden+Kennedy, appear to be more
polarizing than others (based on high
percentages of Great and Bad votes).
0% 50%
10% 20% 30% 40% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Legend
Great votes
Fine votes
Bad votes
Score (rescaled to 0–100)

“Whether the general public likes a name is typically unimportant.
What counts is the target audience’s response, and whether the
name does what it needs to do. Many names now deemed highly
successful (looking at you, Google!) were initially seen as very weird.
Novelty makes people uncomfortable, but it is that very novelty that
can set a new standard.”
Helen Gould
Principal
Brandstuff
Expert commentary

13
C and A are the most common ﬁrst letters, followed by P, S, E, and M
Over 40% of names begin with C, A, P, or S. Frequency of ﬁrst letters loosely tracks with that
of initial letters in written English.*
Notable departures include X (25x more likely in brand
names), Y (over 5x more likely in brand names), H, and D (each over 4x more likely in English).
Legend
Frequency in names
Frequency in English
Consonant
Vowel
Initial letter of name/word
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Y
X
W
A Z
10%
2%
4%
6%
8%
16%
14%
12%
0%
Frequency
(as
initial
letter)
* Analysis of Common English words on
Wolfram Research website
0–9
Other

14
With larger data set*
of names, similar results
About 30% of names begin with C, A, P, or S, although A is less frequent in
this larger data set*
of names. B (7.9%) and M (7%) also show up here as
frequent initial letters. The biggest departures are X (13x more likely in
brand names), Z, and K (each over 4x more likely in brand names). With
the exception of A, vowels are always more frequent as initial letters in
English than they are as initial letters in brand names.
Legend
Frequency in names
Frequency in English
Consonant
Vowel
Initial letter of name/word
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Y
X
W
A Z
Frequency
(as
initial
letter)
0–9
Other
10%
2%
4%
6%
8%
16%
14%
12%
0%
* Over 10,000 brand names pulled from multiple online
sources and de-duplicated (data may be noisy)

“It’s not surprising to see brand names—especially coined names—
over-indexing on initial letters like X and Z. Brand owners have the
option of choosing any word they want (e.g., Zenith) or inventing
entirely new words (e.g., Xerox). These letters may be seen as more
distinctive and memorable, given how rarely they show up in English
(which is also why they’re worth so many points in Scrabble). To be
honest, I’m a little surprised more brand names don’t begin with Q.”
Rob Meyerson
Principal, Heirloom
Author, Brand Naming
Expert commentary

16
A little over half the names are one word and 6 characters or fewer
The most common name lengths are 4, 5, or 6 characters. Median
name length is 6. Over 50% of names are 4-to-7 characters long.
Fewer than 10% of names are over 14 characters long.
99 of the names (76%) are one word. Of the rest, 21 (16%) are 2
words, 6 (4.6%) are 3 words, and 5 (3.8%) are 4 words or longer.
This distribution skews slightly shorter than an analysis*
of 97,565
distinct words in the Google books Ngrams raw data set (from
books scanned by Google) conducted by Peter Norvig, a
researcher at Google. The median word length from Norvig’s
research (7) is very similar, however.
Name length (character count)
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 25+
24
23
Percentage
of
names
20%
10%
2%
4%
6%
8%
16%
14%
12%
18%
0%
Median name length = 6
1
* Analysis of Google Books Ngram by Peter Norvig
Legend
Name length
English word length

17
With larger data set*
of names, length skews longer
In this larger data set*
of names, the most common lengths are 6, 7,
and 8 characters. Median name length is 10. Over 50% of names
are 5-to-10 characters long—perhaps a “sweet spot” for name
length. About 10% of names are over 16 characters long. 52% of
these names are one word and 37% are 2-word names. Of the rest,
9% are 3 words, and 2% are 4 words or longer.
This distribution more closely resembles that from Norvig’s
research (see previous page). Both distributions peak at 6, 7, and 8
letters long. Brand names seem to skew longer than everyday
English words, probably because many brand names (about 48% in
this data set) are more than one word.
Percentage
of
names
20%
10%
2%
4%
6%
8%
16%
14%
12%
18%
0%
* Over 10,000 brand names pulled from multiple online
sources and de-duplicated (data may be noisy)
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24
23
1 25+
Legend
Name length
English word length

18
Shorter names are preferred (R-squared = 0.069)
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
While the correlation is relatively weak, shorter names
appear to have higher scores on average. This is
partly due to some long, low-scoring names (e.g.,
Victorian Gambling…). Outliers include The
Avocado Collective, which scored very well despite
its length, and abbreviations like JLR and ITA, which
score poorly despite their brevity.
Size of circles relates to how many
votes were cast for each name
(e.g., Kraken received over 2,000
votes; Wilder Fields received 181).

“The effect isn’t too strong in this data, but a preference for shorter
names matches the conventional wisdom of namers. This preference
has also been measured by academics: A 2012 study1
found that
‘companies with short, easy-to-pronounce names have … higher
valuations.’ Simplicity, which is related to (but not the same as) length,
also makes a difference. Research2
from 2021 suggests that when
consumers want a product they can control (e.g., a golf ball), brands
‘should avoid using difﬁcult-to-pronounce product names.’”
Rob Meyerson
Principal, Heirloom
Author, Brand Naming
Expert commentary
1
Green & Jame, “Company Name Fluency, Investor Recognition, and
Firm Value.” Journal of Financial Economics.
2
Leonhardt & Pechmann, Is This Product Easy to Control? Liabilities of
Using Difﬁcult-To-Pronounce Product Names. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes.

Findings by
construct

21
Most reviewed names are real-word or coined names
Real Compound Coined Abbreviation
Number
of
names
50
25
5
10
15
20
40
35
30
55
45
0
The vast majority of reviewed names (106 of 131) were split
between real-word (55) and coined (51). This may suggest that
abbreviated (16), compound (7), and foreign-language names
(2, not shown) are less popular naming constructs.
Refresher: What is a naming construct?
The construct describes how a name is structured. For
example, “Virgin” and “Whole Foods” are real English words,
while “Dasani” and “Febreze” are coined (made-up) words.

“We see clients react more positively to real or coined names over
compounds, both during the exploration phase and with the ﬁnal
names they launch. I won’t say compound names are totally dead,
but they’re deﬁnitely not popular right now!”
Scott Milano
Founder, Managing Director
Tanj
Expert commentary

23
Real-word names (and maybe compounds) are slightly preferred
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
-100%
100%
Mean = 4.07%
Mean = 8.80%
Mean = -4.94%
Mean = -27.8%
Real-word names are slightly
preferred, on average, over coined.
Abbreviations are less preferred.
The low number of compound
names in the data set make it hard
to draw any strong conclusions
about their performance.

24
Real-word names have the widest range of length; coined words skew shorter
Name
length
(character
count)
Median = 8 Median = 8
Median = 6
Median = 3.5
Every name over 17 characters long (9 of them) is a real-word name. Median
name length for real-word and compound names is 8 characters. Coined
words skew heavily toward the shorter end—67% are 4, 5, or 6 characters
long. Abbreviated names are even shorter (unsurprisingly), with a median
length of just 3.5 characters.
20
10
2
4
6
8
16
14
12
18
0
24
22
25+
Size of the larger, translucent
squares represents number of
names (e.g., 10 4-character
real-word names).

Real-word names

26
The 55 real-word names included in this report, organized by total votes*
[The Seattle] Kraken
Meta
[Cleveland] Guardians
[Washington] Commanders
Pearl Milling Company
Going
The Avocado Collective
Multiverse
New York City Tourism +
Conventions
Club de Foot Montréal
Reveal
NOT Wieden+Kennedy
[Edmonton] Elks
Third Sphere
Elevance
Wise
Elevate
Palisades Tahoe
Shortcut
Toronto Metropolitan University
Spring
Now
Victorian Gambling and Casino
Control Commission
Bill
Sprout
Anywhere
Talloires Network of Engaged
Universities
YEP
Cosmic Wings
Perch
Wilder Fields
Bite
Stories & Ink [Tattoo Care]
Onto
[Lexington] Counter Clocks
By Wind
Plenitude
The Best One Yet
[Maine] Celtics
Consequence
Game Developer
Over the Spoon
Invited
City Experiences [by Hornblower]
Andy
Pavilion
Humans Being
Play
Are Media
Duly
Fresco
Leap
Insiders
Secret Base
Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts

27
Most and least-preferred real-word names
1. The
Avocado
Collective
● New for “Advance Packing & Marketing Services”
● Descriptive, shorter than prior name
● Created by Block
2. Going ● New name for Scott’s Cheap Flights
● Suggestive, short
3. Reveal ● New name for Sharework
● Suggestive, short
53. Game
Developer*
● New name for Gamasutra
● Descriptive, dry, longer than previous name
54. Pearl Milling
Company
● New name for Aunt Jemima (offensive)
● Descriptive (obscure), very long
● Created in-house
55. Talloires
Network of
Engaged
Universities*
● New name for The Talloires Network
● Very long; 20 char. longer than previous name

28
Scores (vote performance) of real-word names with 100 or more total votes
Percentage of votes
100%
Excluding names with fewer than 100
total votes, sports teams are some of
the most preferred (Edmonton Elks,
The Seattle Kraken) and least
preferred (Maine Celtics, Washington
Commanders) names. Given the
emotional resonance of sports, team
renamings may be especially polarizing.
0% 50%
10% 20% 30% 40% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Legend
Great votes
Fine votes
Bad votes

29
Real-word names: Shorter names perform better (R-squared = 0.144)
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Real-word names range from very short (Now, YEP) to
very long (Victorian Gambling and Casino Control
Commission). The correlation between shortness and
score is stronger for real-word names than for all names,
but outliers exist: Meta has a -17% score despite being
short, while the top-performing name, The Avocado
Collective, is relatively long (22 characters).

Coined names

31
The 51 coined names included in this report, organized by total votes*
Stellantis
Evri
Alleima
Angi
Ortto
Momentive
Izzzi
Mylo
Unzer
Sesimi
Mycle
Copi
Pley
Yelo
Serandipians
Cync
Forma
Arcom
Ontra
Altaﬁber
Point32Health
Brevo
Enovis
Marq
Wondr Health
Covoya
Develon
Xactus
Onro
Pelago
CADA
Beem
Freevee
eFootball
Ambio
Veradigm
Microsoft Bing
Paramount+
SATO
Altera
Joyce University
Audacy
Veryon
Certinia
Entain
Pabio
Radancy
Onoma
Alchemer
Maya
UFirst

32
Most and least-preferred coined names
1. Izzzi ● Entirely new name (not a rebrand)
● Abstract, short
● Created by Mirror Mirror
2. Mylo ● New name for MyLotus
● Coined from “MyLotus,” abstract, very short
3. Alleima ● Entirely new name (not a rebrand)
● Abstract, short
● Created by Kurppa Hosk
49. Microsoft Bing* ● New name for Bing (added “Microsoft”)
● Probably more of a reaction to the addition
of “Microsoft” than to “Bing”
50. Point32Health* ● New name for Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare
and Tufts Health Plan (merger)
● One of few names to contain digits
51. Serandipians* ● New name for Traveller Made
● Long (5 syllables), hard to pronounce

33
Scores (vote performance) of coined names with 100 or more total votes
Percentage of votes
100%
Of coined names with over 100 votes, the
least preferred were Freevee (the
streaming service previously known as
IMDb TV), Stellantis (the merger of Fiat
Chrysler and Peugeot), and Beem (an
Australian “digital wallet”).
0% 50%
10% 20% 30% 40% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Legend
Great votes
Fine votes
Bad votes

34
Coined names: Shorter names perform better (R-squared = 0.345)
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
The correlation between shortness and preference is far
stronger for coined names. All coined names with 10 or
more characters, including Stellantis and Evri, received
negative scores (more Bad votes than Great votes).
Most-preferred coined names Izzzi, Mylo, and Alleima
are at most 7 characters long.

Compound
names

36
The 7 compound names included in this report, organized by total votes*
SAVEME
Keyloop
AirJapan
GoTo
Wellfound
Breezeline
Workrise

37
Most and least-preferred compound names
1. Keyloop ● New name for CDK Global
● Suggestive, shorter than prior name
● Created by SomeOne
2. AirJapan ● Entirely new airline brand (not a rebrand)
● Descriptive, short
3. Wellfound* ● New name for AngelList Talent (spinoff)
● Suggestive, arguably shorter than prior name
5. SAVEME ● Entirely new brand of canned water
● Abstract, short (“ME” also for “Mother Earth”)
6. Workrise* ● New name for Rigup
● Suggestive, slightly longer than old name
7. Breezeline* ● New name for Atlantic Broadband
● Abstract

38
Scores (vote performance) of compound names
Percentage of votes
100%
Keyloop signiﬁcantly outperformed every
other compound name. On the surface, top
performing compounds (Keyloop, Wellfound)
seem very similar to poor performers
(Breezeline, Workrise). Preferences likely
have more to do with the naming approach
(suggestive versus abstract) the names that
were replaced, or other factors..
0% 50%
10% 20% 30% 40% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Legend
Great votes
Fine votes
Bad votes

39
Compound names: Unclear whether length has any impact on preferences
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Compound names range from 4 to 10 characters
long, making it difﬁcult to determine whether length
has any effect on preferences/performance. The
shortest (GoTo) and longest (Breezeline)
compound names both perform relatively poorly.

Abbreviated
names

41
The 16 abbreviated names included in this report, organized by total votes*
ITA Airways
City SC
92NY
JLR
CF Montréal
Charlotte FC
e&
Vi
EUSPA
CNN+
NIQ
SLB
TPC
LL Flooring
AM
UKG

42
Most and least-preferred abbreviated names
1. 92NY ● New name for 92Y (92nd Street Y) in New York
● Descriptive; one character longer, but still short
2. CF Montréal ● New (shortened) name for Club de Foot Montréal
● 10.5% score (54 Great, 32 Bad votes)
● Descriptive, shortening of previous name
3. Vi ● New name for Vodafone Idea Limited (India)
● Extremely short
14. LL Flooring* ● New name for Lumber Liquidators
● -52.5% score (2 Great, 33 Bad votes)
● Rebrand to distance from bad press
15. EUSPA ● New name for EGSA
● Longer than previous name
16. ITA Airways ● New name for Alitalia
● Replaces well-known name; slightly longer

43
Scores (vote performance) of abbreviated names
Percentage of votes
100%
In general, abbreviated names are
less preferred versus other
constructs. 92NY—a clever,
one-letter shift from the previous
name, 92Y—is by far the most
preferred abbreviated name.
0% 50%
10% 20% 30% 40% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Legend
Great votes
Fine votes
Bad votes

44
Abbreviated names: Most names are short; no clear effect
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Abbreviated names are shorter, on average, than any
other construct (unsurprisingly), including the only
2-character names in this data set (Vi, e&, and AM). The
smaller range in length, along with the relatively small
number of abbreviated names, makes it unclear whether
length has any effect on preference.

Renaming vs.
new names

46
New names appear to be more preferred, merger names less preferred
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
Merger New name Rename
-100%
100%
Mean = -28%
Mean = 28%
Mean = -5%
The 108 renamings include the best and worst
scores in the data set. The 15 new names perform
better, on average, while names resulting from
mergers (8) tend to fare far worse.

47
Shorter replacement names appear to be preferred, (R-squared = 0.034)
Score
(percent
Great
votes
minus
percent
Bad
votes)
80%
0
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
60%
40%
20%
Difference between new name and old name (character count)
-28 -26 -24 -22 -20 -18 -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -4 -2 0 +2 +4 +6 +8 +10 +12 +14 +16 +18 +20 +22 +24
-6
New name is longer
New name is shorter
For names that are replaced (i.e.,
rebranding), shorter replacement
names appear to be preferred,
although the correlation is weak. This
may help explain The Avocado
Collective—while long, it’s far
shorter than the name it replaced.

“Naming factors such as length, memorability, meaning, and relatability
matter tremendously. But the number one success factor in a name is
the commitment of the organization to its name and how it uses it.
The greater the commitment, the greater the acceptance among the
audiences it is meant to engage over time. That said, longer, more
obscure names and those devoid of emotion may take longer to take
hold, which means more unwavering commitment from the brands or
organizations supporting them.”
Ken Pasternak
Chief Strategy Ofﬁcer
Two by Four
Expert commentary

Final notes

“Naming is one of the most difﬁcult aspects of creating or reshaping a
brand. The process is as much about creativity as it is about
compromise (whether it be for legal matters with the trademark
ofﬁcer or emotional matters with the clients) and what this analysis
demonstrates, perhaps infuriatingly, is that there is no right or wrong
approach or solution, nor a hint of what makes a name good or bad.
And therein lies the thrill of—one day—getting a name just right.”
Armin Vit
Co-founder
UnderConsideration
Expert commentary

51
Final notes
Considerations for future reports
● For rebrands, the name being replaced may
have an effect on preferences (i.e., replacing
a disliked name increases performance, and
vice-versa). This certainly helps explain the
low score for ITA Airways, which replaced
Alitalia (a beloved brand). It may also help
explain the positive score for The Avocado
Collective, which replaced the
comparatively dry “Advance Packing &
Marketing Services.” Unfortunately, we have
no data on opinions of names that have
been replaced.
● Perceptions of names could also be biased
by perceptions of associated design work.
Much of this data is available on Brand New,
and could be added for analysis in future
reports (however, causation could not be
attributed).
● Some categorization and “coding” decisions I
made (e.g., whether to consider “Edmonton
Elks” a 13 or 4-character name) are debatable.
Different decisions on questionable cases
might yield different results.
● It might be interesting to examine syllable
count as measure of length, in addition to
character count and word count, since the
number of syllables relates more closely to
how long it takes to say a name/word out loud.
● Additional data—especially from other
sources—would help corroborate or refute
these ﬁndings. More data on compound names,
abbreviations, new names, and mergers would
help strengthen those sections of the report.
● A question: Are there other easily measurable
(and objective) factors of brand names that
could affect performance in the polls?
Acknowledgements
● Thank you to the naming experts who
provided feedback on early drafts of this
report, as well as expert commentary
throughout: Anthony Shore, Helen Gould,
Scott Milano, and Ken Pasternak.
● Alex Foss provided crucial advice and
preliminary data analysis on an earlier
version of this report.
● Armin Vit runs the fantastic Brand New
blog. Thanks, Armin, for creating a space for
opinions on brand names. Thanks also to
everyone who visited Brand New and voted
on the names in this report.
Disclosure
● Ontra, a coined name in this report, was my
naming client, in partnership with HUb
Strategy.

The Brand Names Report 2024, created by Rob Meyerson

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