What makes a strong brand name?

Strong names are distinctive, easy to say and spell, relevant to the brand without being generic, and legally available as a trademark and domain. A good name balances these — being memorable is worth little if you cannot register it.

How does the scoring work?

Each candidate is rated one to five on memorability, relevance, distinctiveness, and availability. The tool averages the four scores into an overall rating and ranks the candidates so the brief surfaces the strongest options at a glance.

Why list rejected directions?

Documenting what you ruled out and why prevents going in circles when new stakeholders join the project. It shows the thinking behind the shortlist and stops the team relitigating ideas that were already considered.

Does this check trademarks or domains for me?

No — it generates the prompts and a checklist for you to run those searches via a trademark database and a domain registrar. Availability is too jurisdiction-specific to automate reliably, so the brief flags it as a required step.

Is my naming work saved anywhere?

No. Everything is processed in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. Copy the brief before closing the tab to keep your candidates and scores.

Brand Naming Brief Builder

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Turn name brainstorms into a decision-ready brief

Naming gets stuck when teams argue about gut feelings without shared criteria. This builder gives you the structure used by branding agencies: a clear brief, explicit naming criteria, a record of rejected directions, and a scored shortlist of candidates. By rating each name against the same dimensions, you replace “I just like it” with a comparison stakeholders can actually align on.

How it works

The tool assembles a standard naming brief and adds a weighted evaluation. For each candidate you score four dimensions — memorability, relevance, distinctiveness, and availability — on a one-to-five scale. It averages those into an overall score and sorts the candidates from strongest to weakest, so the brief ranks your shortlist automatically. The “availability” score is a placeholder for real research: the brief appends explicit trademark-search and domain-check prompts because legal availability can sink an otherwise perfect name.

Tips and example

Write the naming criteria before you generate names — they are the rubric you score against.
Keep candidates to a focused shortlist of five to eight; scoring forty names dilutes the exercise.
Treat distinctiveness and availability as near-veto dimensions. A name that scores high on memorability but is already trademarked is not a real option.
Run a quick “say it out loud and spell it over the phone” test before final scoring — clarity in speech is hard to fix later.