Would a rose smell as sweet if called by a different name? The Nomen UK creative team is an eclectic group of individuals with different talents, coming from all walks of life and of ages ranging from the young to the not-so-young. We have in common a passion: creating great brand names for whatever project comes our way. What’s in a word? Words are powerful tools and a knowledge and understanding of words is essential to our task. The word…
Read more >A brand can be considered as many things from several perspectives. A brand is a construction of customer sentiments. A brand is a value on a balance sheet. But a brand is not a legal entity unless it has trademark protection. If your name is not registered as a trademark, there may be a number of restrictions on how you can use it. For example, many people enjoy using a ‘gmail’ account. But, in certain European territories, you can only…
Read more >It is well-known that the Chevy Nova was a failure in Spanish-speaking markets because “nova” translates as “no-go”. That’s not the kind of message you want to transmit in a car name. It may be well-known, but it’s also untrue – the translation is inaccurate and, in any case, the car was a success. But that doesn’t mean that linguistic howlers don’t occur all the time. There are three types of error to avoid. Firstly, the inadvertent use of words…
Read more >When you hear a product name and immediately recognise the underlying brand, you know you’re witnessing a highly effective naming strategy. That’s how it is with a sports car beginning with the letter ‘E’: it’s a Lotus. It has been so for decades and it was central to Nomen’s brief to create a name for the first new Lotus model since the Elise in 1995. But the strategy’s longevity is a double-edged sword and presents two significant naming challenges. Firstly,…
Read more >The trouble with words is that they don’t mean anything. People mean things – words are simply the form most commonly chosen by people to try to get their meaning into the mind of someone else.But when I hear a word, do I hear the same as you? Consider a simple word like “green”, or choose something a little more controversial, like the word “good”. The word I say is not always what it seems… yet words tend to pass…
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