Product naming

Product Naming

Create names from a clear product strategy, then test them as real identifiers. Keep creative generation separate from evidence-backed screening so attractive ideas do not receive invented domain, linguistic, or legal certainty.

Workflow

1. Build the naming brief before generating candidates:
   • product, audience, problem, promise, category, and alternatives
   • desired character and associations
   • geographic and language scope
   • spoken, written, search, domain, and app-store contexts
   • legal entity, product, or feature name
   • hard constraints, exclusions, and decision owner
2. If the product thesis or target user is unresolved, route that decision to product-management; naming cannot repair unclear positioning.
3. Choose two to four relevant name territories. Load Name generation for territories, sound, form, and anti-patterns.
4. Generate a deliberately broad longlist without making availability claims. Include different structures and explain the intended association in one sentence each.
5. Apply the fast filter: relevance, distinctiveness, pronunciation, spelling, memorability, unwanted meaning, category confusion, and team constraints.
6. Research only the surviving candidates. Load Screening and verification for current domain, search, language, trademark, and handle checks.
7. Score evidence transparently and retain three to six finalists. State unknowns and required professional clearance.
8. Test finalists with representative speakers in realistic situations: hearing the name once, spelling it, recalling it later, searching for it, and using it in a sentence.
9. Recommend a top choice plus a credible fallback after the spoken-name test.
10. Record the decision, rejected alternatives, verification date, reservation actions, and conditions that would reopen the choice with decision-records when the repository uses ADRs or another durable decision convention.

Operating Rules

• Prefer a distinctive, human-feeling name over a generic stack of category terms, technology abbreviations, or fashionable suffixes.
• Treat pronunciation and spelling after hearing the name as hard product requirements when word of mouth, sales calls, podcasts, or international use matter.
• Check the actual language set. Do not claim “works globally” from English-only intuition or an AI-generated translation.
• Keep cultural origin and intended meaning honest. Do not fabricate etymology for an invented word.
• Separate registrability, availability, and desirability. A free domain does not make a name safe or strategically strong; a parked domain does not prove the corresponding trademark is unavailable.
• Never report domain, handle, company, product, or trademark status without a current check and dated source. Search-result snippets alone are insufficient.
• Describe trademark research as preliminary screening, not legal clearance. Recommend qualified counsel before commercial commitment when the stakes warrant it.
• Do not purchase domains, reserve handles, file marks, or contact owners unless the user explicitly authorizes that external action.

Default Deliverable

For a full naming assignment, return:

1. Naming brief and unresolved questions
2. Name territories and rationale
3. Shortlist table with pronunciation, meaning, fit, risks, and evidence status
4. Current domain, usage, language, and preliminary trademark findings
5. Ranked recommendation with tradeoffs, not a winner by score alone
6. Spoken-name test and representative-user validation plan
7. Legal, registration, and reservation next steps

Routing Boundaries

• Use product-management to resolve audience, product thesis, differentiation, or portfolio architecture before naming.
• Use consultant-profile when naming is part of an individual consultant's positioning rather than a product or business identity.
• Hand post-selection messaging and launch work to a product marketing specialist; use a brand specialist only when one is available.
• Use web-legal-compliance for website disclosures and jurisdiction-specific launch requirements; it does not replace trademark counsel.
• Use originality-review when a produced identity or campaign must be compared with supplied visual and verbal references. Keep trademark similarity and clearance with this skill's preliminary screening and qualified counsel.
• Use decision-records to preserve a durable naming choice, the rejected alternatives, and conditions that would reopen it.