NameLab Inc. is an American company based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

that provides business- and product-naming services.

Naming

The naming process includes identifying appropriate words and "making them a ''thing''." Smaller than a ''word'' is a

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

, the building block from which marketing names such as "Lumina" are formed. One example is how NameLab used the prefix "Acu" to help form "Acura." The term "In-capping" involves joining and capitalizing multiple words and describes the name ''NameLab.'' It worked for clients such as

AutoZone AutoZone, Inc. is an American retailer of aftermarket automotive parts and accessories, the largest in the United States. Founded in 1979, AutoZone has 7,140 stores across the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the US Virgin Island ...

. A NameLab competitor used the idea to change its own name from ''Millennium Groupe'' to ''NeuVision Group LLC'' in the year 2000. NameLab's Bachrach defended his business, saying, "If you make up a word, you will have much stronger proprietary rights." Also, just as do-it-yourself tax filers are

H&R Block H&R Block, Inc., or H&R Block, is an American tax preparation company operating in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The company was founded in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri, by brothers Henry W. Bloch and Richard Bloch. As of 2018, H&R ...

's largest competitor, the name-it-yourself approach can work:

Yext Yext is a New York-based digital presence platform company for multi-location brands. It enables brands to deliver consistent, accurate information to customers anywhere in the digital world from one central platform. Offering local listings mana ...

named itself by combining Next and Yellow Pages. Naming can involve

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...

and semanticists. A supporting process helps convince companies on what they're doing: STAR - "Segmentation Through Attitudinal Restructuring". Advertising guru

Al Ries Alfred Paul Ries (November 14, 1926 – October 7, 2022) was an American marketing professional and author. He was the cofounder and chairman of the Atlanta-based consulting firm Ries & Ries with his partner and daughter, Laura Ries. Along with ...

said: "The name is the single most important decision you'll ever make as a company." Much of the company's work is for naming products, with related suggestions for product characteristics, such as the color of a pill. Another part of this work is to verify that the suggested name is not already in use.

History

The firm was started by Ira N. Bachrach. Clients included

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technologies corporation headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its common stock is a c ...

, Coors,

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

Federal Express FedEx Corporation, originally known as Federal Express Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company specializing in transportation, e-commerce, and business services. The company is headquartered in Memphis, Tenness ...

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

, Compaq Computer Corp. and

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

. The high point of its success was the tech boom of the late 1990s, because many startups sought names that would attract investors.

References

Product development {{US-company-stub