Naming The 'Thing'
The wild exhilaration of breathing life into the idea and making it real
There’s a moment in building something when it stops being theoretical.
For me, that moment was naming it.
Up until then, it was “the brand I’m working on.”
“The idea.”
“The thing I think I’m going to build.”
Naming it changed the temperature of the room.
Once it had a name, it wasn’t optional anymore. It wasn’t a thought experiment. It wasn’t something I could casually revisit when I had time. It felt closer to how you describe a child than a concept. Suddenly, it needed to be protected. Guided. Grown into.
A name makes something accountable.
But naming isn’t poetry. It’s architecture.
The name had to hold more than a product. It had to support my growing three-year roadmap. It needed to stretch across categories without breaking. It needed to feel consumer-facing, not insider-clever. It had to sound like a brand, not a project.
That’s a lot to ask of a few syllables.
I ran through dozens. Some sounded sharp but narrow. Some were memorable but boxed me into one lane. Some I loved intellectually but knew wouldn’t resonate outside my own head. I had so many sticky notes of names, waiting for one to call me.
Because here’s the truth: you don’t name something for yourself. You name it for the consumer encountering it cold, with no backstory.
I have a friend, an exceptional consumer researcher, run a quick study for me. Hearing the reactions was both humbling and fascinating. People either leaned in immediately or hesitated. Certain associations I thought were obvious weren’t. Certain reactions I didn’t anticipate showed up fast.
It was a reminder that brands live in other people’s minds, not yours.
Then came the softer test: telling people close to me.
Did they light up?
Did they tilt their head?
Did they politely say, “Interesting…” which is code for “Christina, what are we doing here?”
You can tell when someone gets it. There’s a beat where the idea clicks. And when it clicks, you feel it in your body. The name stops being a gamble and starts feeling inevitable.
That was the good part.
The less glamorous part was everything that followed.
Trademark searches. Competitive scans. Looking not just for present conflicts, but future ones. Could this scale? Could this collide with someone in an adjacent category two years from now? Would I regret this when the brand grew beyond its first SKU?
Naming something may feel emotional, but protecting it is procedural.
Personally, digging through the trademark database is a bit of a rabbit hole, or maybe a graveyard. So many TM’s that may exist or perhaps have gone off to pasture. A little intimidating and a little bit of ‘deep breath - you got this’ type of moment.
But that friction matters. It forces discipline. It makes you ask whether you love the name and why. This process takes time, like over six months, something I didn’t anticipate. (Plus, all the scammers out there trying to claim they are part of the USPTO… my goodness…)
Once I cleared those hurdles, something shifted.
The brand wasn’t just an idea anymore. It had legs. It started to organize decisions around itself. Visual identity suddenly mattered more. Tone mattered more. Even spreadsheets felt different. Instead of modeling “a product,” I was modeling this brand.
Naming didn’t finish anything.
It started everything. An exhilarating feeling!
And it led me straight into the next exciting challenge: turning that name into something visual. A logo. A mark. A face.
It turns out, drawing the thing is harder than naming it. And I needed to call in reinforcements for help. And they cost money.
That’s where we are headed next.