“Name less. Name better.”

If you’re tasked with leading naming work in a large, or even large-ish, organization, you might want to make that your new mantra.

It's a truth that experienced namers see over and over: when an organization names everything, it's often a sign that it's not dedicating enough time, talent, or tools to make truly effective naming decisions.

Earlier this year, Wild Geese Studio launched a first-of-its-kind study to understand how big brands manage their internal naming needs. And we just sent out our first report to the study’s participants, playing back some of the major insights.

The big takeaway? Our survey found that a third of organizations spend over 200 hours on a single name, and many embark on more than 50 naming projects a year. These teams—most of which have responsibilities beyond just naming—are under a lot of strain as they try to triage more requests than there are hours in the week. The inclination to over-name can lead to brand dilution and customer confusion.

How to make a case for naming less without devaluing the investment into naming

You can make the case in a lot of compelling ways:

• Potential (or real) customer confusion from over-naming

• A lack of alignment with an agreed-to naming strategy or ideal brand experience

• The risk associated with having to monitor, protect, and enforce too many trademarks

But one thing that's true of most businesses: They respond well to a financial case*.

In organizations that name too much, it's worth doing some financial forensics to find out just how much it’s costing you.

At Wild Geese Studio, we call this the Naming Upside Equation

The short of it is this: the cost to name something should not outweigh its potential value to the brand or business.

There are a lot of ways to calculate both sides of that equation, and your specific costs and ways of calculating value may vary.

How can you do some quick back-of-the-napkin math to make this case? Start here:

Calculate the cost: Multiply the total number of hours spent on an average naming project by the average hourly rate of the people involved. Be honest about this—how many people are involved, from start to finish? How many meetings? How many hours between meetings? Then add in outside vendor costs, like agencies, research fees, and any outside legal fees.

Estimate the value: Now, think about what naming that thing actually gets you. Can you charge more? Will it make the brand easier to recommend? Will it reduce your marketing costs?

Find the upside: If the value isn’t a lot higher than what you’ll devote to developing and caring for** the name, don’t name it. Instead, message it, label it, or market its new benefits to make its meaning clear without giving it a distinctive name.

Scenario: Oreos

Oreos: An iconic cookie with an iconic name. It’s also a brand that understands the art of not over-naming.

An Oreo, as it lives in my heart and mind, is a cocoa-flavored crunchy cookie with a creme filling (and, hey, it’s vegan!). The one true cookies-n-cream cookie.

And it remains that, despite being available in a dizzying number of flavors, form factors, and grocery-store aisles. I have total clarity about what an Oreo is, while giving them a ton of wiggle room to tell me it’s actually completely different almost every time I go shopping.

It’s largely because they don’t overdo it when it comes to naming. When they launch different filling flavors, they label them descriptively: Lemon flavor creme. Apple pie a la mode flavor creme. Gluten free. The cookie changes. The filling changes. But it’s still an Oreo. It’s the only real “name” on the pack. (Most of the time, anyway. Right now, there is a version that says “SELENA GOMEZ” much, much bigger than the Oreo brand name, but I assume that was in the brand deal somewhere…)

When they entered the freezer aisle, they use a simple, clear descriptor: Oreo Sandwiches, Bars, Cones, Cups.

They save their naming resources for products that require more understanding, like Cakesters. For this, there wasn’t a well-known, industry-standard term available. (This branded name for this form factor is also found across different Nabisco treats, so it also likely made sense to build meaning into a more distinctive name here than it would have for something like a relatively standard format like an ice cream sandwich.)

If Oreos were to instead name every single variant they introduce, it would quickly cloud the clarity (In an over-naming culture, I might have to choose between Oreo Thinsters and Oreo Conesters and Oreo Cupsters, or my flavor choices might look more like a Lemeos and A-La-Mode-os, or I’d have to buy my g-free friend something called Gluteos instead of Oreos…)

Managing the internal demands of naming at a large organization is hard

The better we understand the operational load of naming, the better equipped we are to elevate it from a source of friction to a strategic asset. If you’d like to talk about ways to better understand, optimize, and improve the way you name, let’s talk! Book a quick chat with me by replying to this email or shooting a note to [email protected].

*There are cases when this feels less applicable (e.g., being required to divest a business for regulatory reasons, needing a legally viable name to enter a market where your current trademark can’t be used, etc.)

** The costs don’t stop once it’s launched—think about how much more you might have to spend on marketing to make a name meaningful, monitoring for potentially conflicting trademarks, and paying for enforcement and protection of your trademark if someone does infringe.  

– Caitlin Barrett


Founder and naming expert, Wild Geese Studio 


Your strategic naming partner for development, operations, and evaluation.

P.S. If you manage naming in a large organization (over $10bn in annual revenue), I’d love to include you in our next round of research for our naming operations benchmark study. Reply to this email, and I’ll send you the details.