Brand naming that survives the trade mark and domain check
The hard part of naming is not thinking of names. It is finding one that is still available as a trade mark, a business name, a domain and a handle, and that your team can say on the phone without spelling it twice.
What is brand naming?
Brand Naming is the structured process of generating, screening and selecting a name that is legally available and commercially useful. It covers creative development plus checks against IP Australia trade mark records, ASIC business name registers, domains and social handles. It suits Australian businesses launching, renaming or naming a new product line or sub brand.
Get a fixed written quote- Typical timeline
- 4 to 7 weeks
- What drives cost
- Depends on how many names are in scope, whether you need one brand name or a naming system for a product range, and how deep the screening needs to go.
- Best for
- New ventures, renames, product lines and sub brands
- You own
- The full name pool, screening records and the selected name
- Built with
- Structured generation, IP Australia and ASIC screening, linguistic checks
Your handover
Why most naming shortlists collapse at the availability check
A typical in-house naming session produces forty names in an afternoon and everybody leaves happy. Two weeks later the favourite is gone, the second choice has a registered trade mark in the same class held by a business in Perth, the third has a domain parked at a price nobody will pay, and the fourth turns out to be a slang term the youngest person in the room was too polite to mention. Morale collapses and the project stalls, usually just as a launch date starts moving.
- 01Written naming brief and agreed decision criteria
- 02Full generated name pool, not only the shortlist
- 03IP Australia screening notes per candidate
- 04ASIC business and company name check results
- 05Domain and social handle availability report
- 06Linguistic and cultural screening notes
- Finalists shown in real use contexts
- Recommendation with reasoning against the criteria
- Domains and handles secured on the day of the decision
The fix is to screen continuously rather than at the end
The fix is to screen continuously rather than at the end. We generate in volume, screen aggressively at each round, and only ever present names that have already survived the checks. That means you never fall in love with something you cannot have, which is the single largest cause of naming projects running twice as long as planned. It also means the list you see is shorter than the list we made, and that is deliberate.
Alternatively keep the name and fix everything around it, which is a brand refresh rather than a rename.
Descriptive, suggestive or abstract
Descriptive names tell buyers exactly what you do, which helps in a directory and hurts everywhere else. Sydney Plumbing Services is instantly understood and almost impossible to protect, because you cannot stop anyone else describing their business accurately. It is also invisible: there are dozens like it and none of them own the category in anyone's memory. It is a reasonable choice for a local trade business with no ambitions beyond a suburb, and a poor one for anything that intends to scale.
Abstract names are the opposite
Abstract names are the opposite. They are protectable, distinctive and completely meaningless until you invest in them, which is a real cost and one many businesses underestimate. Suggestive names sit in between, hinting at a benefit without describing the service, and this is where most successful Australian brands land. We will tell you which territory suits your situation and your marketing budget, because the right answer depends on how much awareness you can afford to build rather than on which names sound the most interesting in a meeting.
How the engagement runs
How a naming project runs
Naming feels like a creative process and is mostly a filtering process. We do the creative work in volume, because the hit rate after screening is low and quantity is the only honest response to that. A few hundred candidates generated across several different routes typically yields a shortlist of five or six that survive everything, and it is normal for a strong early favourite to die at the trade mark stage.
- 01BriefThe positioning the name has to support, the naming territory, and the words and associations you want to avoid
- 02CriteriaAgreed decision rules in writing, including how the final call gets made and by whom
- 03GenerationSeveral hundred candidates across descriptive, suggestive, abstract, founder and compound routes
- 04First screenObvious collisions removed against IP Australia and ASIC, plus domain and handle availability
- 05DevelopmentSurviving names written into real sentences, an email address, a phone greeting and a logo lockup
- 06Second screenLinguistic and cultural checks, plus a closer trade mark look at the finalists
- 07Selection and securingThe decision made against the agreed criteria, then domains and handles registered the same day
Two decisions on your side that keep the project moving
The brief matters more than people expect. Naming without agreed criteria turns into a preference contest where the loudest opinion wins and nobody can explain the decision three months later. We agree the criteria in writing first, including how much you are willing to spend defending a distinctive name versus accepting a descriptive one that will never be exclusively yours.
Choose the right level
The four screens every name has to pass
Availability is not one check, it is four, and they are independent of each other. A name can be free on ASIC and blocked at IP Australia, or clear on both with a domain someone has held since 2004. Passing three of four is not passing. We run all four on every candidate before it reaches your shortlist, and we record the results so your lawyer is not starting from scratch.
Screen
01
Trade mark
What we check
IP Australia records in the classes relevant to your goods and services, including similar sounding marks
What it does not cover
Formal clearance advice, which is a job for a registered attorney
02
Business and company name
What we check
ASIC business name and company registers, plus near identical variants
What it does not cover
Common law rights held by a trading business that never registered
03
Digital
What we check
The .com.au and .au domains, the .com where it matters, and handles on the platforms you will actually use
What it does not cover
Every domain extension in existence, which is not a useful standard
04
Linguistic and cultural
What we check
Pronunciation, misreadings, unfortunate abbreviations and meanings in languages common in Australian cities
What it does not cover
Every language on earth, unless you are exporting to a specific market
How we work this out during scoping
One important caveat we state up front: we are not lawyers and our screening is not a legal clearance opinion. What we do is remove the obvious collisions so that the two or three names reaching a trade mark attorney are worth paying for. That sequencing saves money, because clearance advice on a list of twelve unscreened names is an expensive way to discover that eleven of them were never viable.
Testing a name without running a popularity contest
Asking staff and customers to vote on names produces bad decisions with high-confidence. People reliably prefer the familiar, which means descriptive and conventional names always win a vote while distinctive ones look strange until they are established. Every strong brand name sounded odd the first time it was said aloud, and a vote systematically eliminates exactly those candidates.
More on testing a name without running a popularity contest
So we test differently. We check whether people can spell it after hearing it once on a phone call, whether they can find it in a search after seeing it briefly, whether they read it the way you intend, and whether it survives being said in a noisy room. Those are questions with right answers. We also check that it does not collide with a competitor in the way people talk about your category. What we do not do is ask which name they like, because that question tells you about familiarity rather than fit.
When you should not rename
If you have traded under a name for a decade, rank well for it and get referrals by word of mouth, renaming discards a real asset for an uncertain gain. The bar should be high. Legitimate reasons include a name that no longer describes what you sell, a trade mark conflict you cannot settle, an association that has become a liability, or a name that blocks you from expanding beyond one city or one service. Disliking it internally is not one of those reasons, and it is the most common motivation we hear.
The rest of the answer
There is a middle path that suits a lot of businesses. Keep the legal entity name for contracts and invoicing, and introduce a trading name for the market, registered with ASIC and used consistently across your marketing. Alternatively keep the name and fix everything around it, which is a brand refresh rather than a rename. If the underlying issue is that the business has changed shape, the honest starting point is brand development and architecture, not a new word.
How we scope it
Four ways to scope your Brand Naming project
We do not publish package prices, because the same brief can be a short build or a long one. These are the shapes the work usually takes. Tell us which one sounds like you and you will get a fixed written quote that spells out exactly what it covers.
Brand Naming Core
The essentials, done properly, not a template
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Written naming brief and agreed decision criteria
- Full generated name pool, not only the shortlist
- IP Australia screening notes per candidate
Full identity
A complete identity your team can apply without us
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Brand Naming Core
- ASIC business and company name check results
- Domain and social handle availability report
- Linguistic and cultural screening notes
Brand system
A system that holds up across products and campaigns
Fixed written quote, agreed before work starts
- Everything in Full identity
- Finalists shown in real use contexts
- Recommendation with reasoning against the criteria
- Domains and handles secured on the day of the decision
Brand care
Applying and extending it as the business grows
Rolling monthly, quoted in writing
- New assets and applications as they come up
- The system extended rather than reinvented
- Files and source artwork kept in order and in your name
- Rolling, cancel with 30 days notice
These are shapes, not menus. Most quotes end up somewhere between two of them, and we will say so when the honest answer is the smallest one. Describe the problem and we will tell you which it is.
Questions buyers usually ask
Frequently asked questions
How long does a brand naming project take?
Usually 4 to 7 weeks. Brief and criteria take the first week, generation and screening the next two to three, and development plus final checks the remainder. It runs long when the criteria were never agreed or when a new stakeholder joins late with different preferences. Securing domains and handles happens on the day of the decision, so nothing gets taken while you deliberate.
Do you register the trade mark for us?
No. We screen thoroughly against IP Australia records so you are not paying an attorney to review names that were never viable, and we hand over our search notes. Filing and formal clearance advice should come from a registered trade mark attorney, and we are happy to work alongside yours. Treat our screening as risk reduction rather than legal clearance, because that is what it is.
What if the domain we want is taken?
It usually is, and it is rarely fatal. For Australian businesses selling locally, the .com.au or .au carries more weight with buyers than the .com does, and a strong local domain with an unavailable .com is a normal position to be in. If the .com is held by an active business in your category, that is a different problem and we would drop the name at screening rather than negotiate.
What does brand naming cost?
It depends on how many names are in scope, whether you need one brand name or a naming system for a product range, and how deep the screening needs to go. A single trading name is a much smaller job than naming six products with a convention that has to keep working. We scope it in a short call and send a fixed written quote before any generation begins.
Can you name products and sub brands rather than the company?
Yes, and it is a large share of the work. Product naming needs a convention rather than a one-off, so that the fifth product in three years does not break the pattern. We set the rules, name the current range against them and document how future names get created. That convention should follow from your brand architecture, which we cover under brand development.
What happens after we choose a name?
You register the business name with ASIC, we secure the domains and handles immediately, and you brief a trade mark attorney on the finalist. Then the name needs a mark and a system around it, which is logo design and brand identity. We recommend not announcing anything until the trade mark application is filed, since a public launch can complicate the position.
Related services
Start a naming project that ends with a name you can keep
Tell us what you are naming and what it has to stand for. We reply within one business day with a proposed approach and a fixed written quote.