A brand’s name is often its first and most lasting impression: a strong signal of personality and purpose. The stories behind the almost-names of the biggest brands reveal how small decisions can shape the trajectory of global businesses.

Amazon’s early name was Cadabra, implying magic, but when an early stakeholder misheard it as cadaver, Jeff Bezos changed it to a strong metaphor for abundance and scale. Meanwhile, Google’s initial name, Backrub, connected to its early purpose of ranking backlinks, but founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin quickly spotted that it wasn’t scalable and made the change to Google in 1997.

These new names laid the foundations for global brands; today’s founders need to recognize the power of a name, as Bezos and Page did. At Atom, our research into brand names has not only revealed why names remain a critical brand asset in 2025, but has also provided an outline for brands seeking to make an impact with their audience.

 

Name matters more than ever in 2025

In an increasingly competitive world, a brand name is your first chance to stand out. From “compounding” in customers’ memories to reducing marketing costs, name matters more than ever in 2025.

 

Creating connection with your audience

Your name is often your first impression, and it says a lot about you. You need to pack your unique selling position, brand purpose, and your mission and values into a couple of words to build an instant and compelling connection with your customers. According to a recent Forbes article, ​​77% of consumers are guided by brand name, while our own research found that 72% of consumers say that a name aligned with brand mission helps them build a stronger brand connection.

 

Boosting memorability and credibility

You choose your name once, but it works for your brand day in, day out, with every iteration of a customer reaction. A memorable name builds top-of-mind awareness, while a clean, easy-to-spell name makes you trusted and authoritative: our research shows 77% of consumers say that difficult-to-spell names impact brand credibility, and 74% say it’s important for a name to be unique.

 

Getting a better ROI on marketing

A memorable and shareable name is the foundation of your brand’s marketing campaigns. The instant recognition of a powerful name means customers only must glimpse your marketing material to get the picture. By building top-of-mind awareness in your audience, your campaigns will have a bigger impact, and you’ll get more when spending less.

 

Persuading stakeholders

Your name has a huge impact on customers, but it also influences your relationship with other stakeholders, such as regulators and investors. Our research found that 82% of investors say difficult-to-spell names make it harder to secure funding and can harm memorability and discoverability with customers.

 

Rebranding is costly

Names matter because once you pick one, it’s expensive to change it. You abandon brand equity, spend big on marketing, and harm your reputation: some research suggests only 18% of consumers favor brand name changes. Brands should think strategically when choosing a name and ensure it aligns with their long-term vision while leaving room for growth into new markets and towards new audiences.

 

The latest brand naming research

Atom surveyed consumers and investors on what makes a great brand name—here’s what we found:

 

Choose your name type with care

Single English words generate the most curiosity among consumers, sparking them to learn more about your brand. These names, leveraged by diverse brands from dating app Hinge to tech brands like Apple, often build curiosity based on ambiguity, metaphor or symbolism. After single words, compound names like Facebook, Mailchimp, and Soundcloud create interest in your brand.

Among our audience, made-up words were the least successful names for inducing curiosity, but they are more easily available to trademark or find available domain names. If you’re getting creative, make sure the name is easy to spell, such as Kodak, or contributes to your brand’s positioning, like Häagen-Dazs’s foreign flavor.

 

Name with purpose

Consumers said that the #1 aim of a brand name should be to reflect the underlying product or service, while the second most important trait is that it’s unique and creative. Thus, you find your perfect name in the space between description and creativity—a name that captures the essence of your product while standing out from competitors. You don’t need to name literally to do this. Think about how your product changes customers’ lives or the emotions your customers should feel when they interact with your brand. Brainstorm to find great names that meet and transcend customer expectations.

 

Connect with your mission and values

Your brand’s mission and values can be found in big commitments to social, environmental, or ethical causes as well as your passion for providing an easy, affordable, and reliable service for your customers. Wherever they come from, building them into your name can be powerful, and almost three-quarters of surveyed consumers say that they build a stronger connection to a brand when name aligns with mission and values.

 

Avoid the biggest pitfalls

Naming isn’t easy: you have a few short words with which to capture the most important brand elements and communicate them to customers. Still, if you avoid the biggest mistakes, you’re on the right track. For consumers, our research identified that the most common mistake is that names aren’t memorable, while investors said the most common mistake is that names are too similar to other brands in that industry.

The common thread is clear: you have to stand out. Examine your competitors’ names and find a way to be distinctive.

 

A defining moment

Naming is a challenge for every brand, but also an enormous opportunity. It’s your single biggest opportunity to define yourself in the eyes of your customers, so make the moment count.

You can’t choose a name before you know who you are. Build out your wider brand vision, including your unique selling proposition and your brand mission, then take a deep dive into your audience’s expectations and values as well as competitors’ names and industry trends. Within this process, the blank page will fill up with ideas for your perfect name. See what sticks.

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Grant Polachek is Chief Growth Officer at Atom.com, an AI-native premium domain marketplace for startups and established businesses. Atom supports the entire naming journey, including idea generation, research and testing, trademark support, and brand monitoring.

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