We like our own names

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Saw this fun little piece on naming today. It mostly talks about “Googlegängers” (folks who share the same name finding out about each other through Google). But the reference to people subliminally liking names that are similar to their own is fascinating.

I’ve experienced a slightly different, but likely related tendency in my years as a naming expert. Clients often have an uncanny (if irrational) draw to names that *they* came up with. Their names can be off-message and totally unavailable as trademarks, but if the CEO coined it, the chances of it ending up on the product increase exponentially. Seems odd to pay for a naming consultant if you’re only going to use what you already came up with. But what do I know?

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Maria is Co-Founder & Creative Director of Catchword Branding and has personally created hundreds of brand names, including Asana, Upwork, Vudu, and

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