Wordlab

Set your brand free. I have just launched a new naming agency, Zinzin, that creates powerful product and company names to propel and differentiate brands beyond their competition. We help elevate a company’s messaging above the generic brand chatter that clogs cultural discourse.

At Zinzin, we believe that creating powerful names is both a science, for which we have a rigorous, battle-tested process, and an art, for it is the art and poetry of great names that separate brands from their uninspired competition. Great names become brands that foster emotional engagement with their audience, and these are the names we are passionate about.

The Zinzin website has many features to help you get a handle on the naming process, including the Naming Guide and Manifesto PDFs available for free download.

Wordlab will continue to be a great free naming and branding resource for people and small companies who can’t afford to hire a naming firm. For companies in need of professional naming and branding services, Zinzin is here for you.

Join the conversation on Twitter by following @ZinzinLive.

Whatever you think about the domain name system, it’s been pretty effective in allowing the World Wide Web to expand so rapidly over the past two decades. And for most companies, “.com” has been THE place to park your brand. But that may all change soon.

ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the non-profit, global coordinator of the Internet’s naming system. ICANN’s global Internet regulators met today in Singapore to “finalize rules for a major expansion of ‘generic top-level domains,’ that will clear the way for new offerings like .law, .coke or .nyc. Sites with those endings are expected to start rolling out late next year.” CNN.com tells the story in Forget .com, here’s .coke:

“Today’s decision will usher in a new Internet age,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors. “We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration.”

Now, before you get all excited and start dreaming of registering “.wordlab” or “.snark” domain names, note the “gotcha”:

Crawford thinks dot-brand sites will be a hit with major companies. In addition to marketing benefits, they could help on the security front: HSBC, for example, could tell customers that a purported HSBC site isn’t legitimate unless it ends in .hsbc. And a company like Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) could market products at cellphones.verizon and store locations at losangeles.verizon.

But these benefits don’t come cheaply — or easily. ICANN charges at $185,000 per domain application, which Crawford says typically must include about 150 pages of policy documents.

Technical setup takes another $100,000 or so, he says, and upkeep can cost an additional $100,000 each year.

So there you have it — only “major companies” who can afford the cost and regulatory overhead will be able to buy into this, and the result will likely be more brand clutter and confusion, with new domains like .coke, .pepsi, .verizon, .hsbc flooding the Internet with millions more corporate websites. No longer would users just go to coke.com to find out — wait, why do users go there? — whatever they need to find out, but potentially there might be thousands of separate .coke sites. Any large company could basically build its own Internet now — imagine a self-contained, Chromewashed .google empire. And forget about just one “iCloud” for Apple — they could create a mega-cloud of .apple websites.

In addition to companies, non-profits, NGO’s, citizen groups, artists and any sort of non-corporate entity that can raise the funds could also create its own self-contained micro-Internet. Imagine legions of fans registering .gaga, .bieber, .kanye or .diddy domains for their fanblogs, with all that registration money going directly to the artists instead of GoDaddy. That is, if there’s anyone left who wants to have their own website, when a Facebook page is probably all they need. We’ll see.

It’s enough to make your head spin. And in the not-too-distant future, people will misplace websites and domains the way they misplace car keys. Honey, where did you park my files? Was it at cloud.apple, icloud.apple, app.apple, cloudapp.apple, cumulus-cloud.apple, docs.google, mydocs.google or vault.amazon?

Of course, there will be apps to help you remember where you put your digital life. Oh-yes-there-will-be.apps.

If you are looking to name a real or fantasy sports team, or a charity, academic or business team, or any other kind of team, Wordlab’s free Team Name Generator will deliver 16,703,520 of them to you one at a time, at the push of a magic button.

I just tested it for my own team name, and here are some of the beauties I came away with:

North Stucco Stumblers
Lucky Chillers
Hopping Steel Chameleons
Headless Turf Monkeys
Stealth Hillbillies
Macho Fire Strikers
Gritty Metal Aftermath
Bouncing Chemical Wheelers
Tri-City Green Wasps
Phat Vampires
Irrational Space Zealots
Pastel Beige Miltons
Hot Desert Crawlers
Tripping Silverbacks
Grunting Day Rats
Tainted City Burnouts
Giant Marsh Groundhogs
Hard Red Prawns
The Chemical Beancounters
Random Surf Rappers
The Champagne Patsies
Noble Longhairs
Limping Bush Hackers

If you need help with a specific team naming project and the Team Name Generator isn’t quite working out for you, sign up for a free Wordlab membership and post a New Topic to the Sports Team Names group Forum, and members of the Wordlab community will jump in and help you beat your arch rivals to a better team name. And see all the other name generators on our Name Generators page.

As part of James Salter month at the Paris Review, the journal’s blog has posted some of Salter’s notes and scribblings, documenting a little bit of his process coming up with the title for his 1975 novel Light Years: “At every magazine or publishing house, there’s always an editor or two with a knack for titles. But even so, rarely does one come in a flash of divine inspiration. There are iterations and themes and the same words written over and over. Here is a glimpse of what James Salter’s process was like with his 1975 novel Light Years…. Salter seems so close at points, circling back to light and years, sometimes on the same page but not always the same line, ranking his favorites and weighing the opinions of others.” (Click through for more images.)

Really James, Estuarial Years didn’t merit a strike-through? The Tortoise must have liked it…

Salter might have benefited from the input of Wordlabbers if only he’d traveled a few decades into the future and posted a new Topic in our Publications Forum.

Attention authors: give Wordlab a try for novel titles, non-fiction book titles, short story titles, and even character names. (Via The Paris Review via Flavorpill)

I was briefly watching the local news last night, which I rarely do, and I caught a glimpse of this interview during a story about Southern California wildfires:

Now that’s a great name! Like a Bond Girl. And kudos to Chardonnay for not being shy about having it and putting herself out there. And good luck battling those wildfires!

For the rest of us who aren’t so lucky namewise, here is a Bond Girl name generator to help spice up our personal nomenclature. My Bond Girl names are Tawnie Small and Yoko Dos, both of which I quite like.

As a supplement to our previous post about Virgin America’s contest to name their first U.S. to Canada plane, here is a list of aircraft names in Virgin America’s fleet:

Air Colbert
Airplane 2.0
An Airplane Named Desire
California Dreaming
Chic Mobile
Contents May Be Under Pressure
Dark Horse
Entourage Air
Fog Cutter
Gogo Dancer
Jane
Jefferson Airplane
Let There Be Flight
Mach Daddy
Midnight Ride
Moodlights, Camera, Action
My Other Ride’s A Spaceship
Red, White & Blue
Runway Angel
San Fransico Pride
Superfly
The 1-Year-Old Virgin
The Tom Clark Express
Three If By Air
Tubular Belle
Unicorn Chaser
Virgin & Tonic
Youtube Air

Next time you get on a plane, ask what its name is.

I’ve been on a rampage though the patent database trolling for unusual names and language. Here is another gem: Tortoise penis kidney-tonifying wine. Betcha’ never thought you could patent such a concoction! In case you want to try to brew this baby up at home, the patent abstract lists the key ingredients:

The invention discloses tortoise wine for invigorating the kidney. The technical key points of the invention are that the wine is made by infusing live turtle, deer scourge, fur seal scourge and such Chinese herbal medicine as honeysuckle, osmanthus flower, codonopsis pilosula, angelica, morinda root, leatherleaf milletia, dodder, Schisandra, radix achyranthis bidentatae, Cherokee rose, barrenwort and grain wine. The wine for invigorating the kidney of the invention ahs the effects of invigorating the kidney, benefiting the stomach, strengthening the human immunity, resisting the fatigue and preventing the aging.

I was especially struck — after “tortoise penis” — by the ingredients “deer scourge” and “fur seal scourge”. I thought, is there another, more benign meaning of “scourge” that I’m not aware of? Nope, all the definitions of “scourge” are pretty grim:

• noun: a whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor)
• noun: a person who inspires fear or dread
• noun: something causes misery or death
• verb: punish severely; excoriate
• verb: whip
• verb: devastate or ravage

This “kidney-tonifying wine” sounds even more inviting than the “turtle deer donkey wine” I posted yesterday, unless you’re a “live turtle”.

Basically what you’ve got here is “pureed tortoise penis and other animal crap that will cause you misery or death.” You see, it succeeds in “preventing the aging” by killing you outright. There, no more worries about aging.

If you need to name a restaurant, bar, pizzaria, taco stand, tavern, pub, cafe, bagel shop, or any fine dining or drinking establishment, Wordlab’s Restaurant / Bar Name Generator is to die for, with over 100,000 potential names to whet your appetite.

Here is a batch of Restaurant Names I just generated, fresh from the kitchen:

Shitaki Lounge
Volta Kitchen
Flamethrower
Stuffed Shirt Tearoom
Jerky Jim’s
Plonk
Mystic Taqueria
Goat and Guru Bistro
Firebelly
Café Left Blank
Circula Restaurant

If you need help with specific restaurant / bar names and the Restaurant / Bar Name Generator isn’t quite working out for you, sign up for a free Wordlab membership and post a New Topic to the Restaurant Names group Forum, and members of the Wordlab community will jump in and help you cook up something delicious. And see all the other name generators on our Name Generators page.

For everyone in need of character names, Wordlab’s got ‘em in spades with our new Character Name Generator. With 379,175,790 potential names, mostly well off the beaten track, you can populate an entire country with unique character names.

Here is a batch of Character Names I just generated, fresh from the oven:

Cache Cherlin Wombatten
Nesbitt Contessa Sweet
Sleque Quincy Macropus
Delvin Umbria Snapp
Butch Tawny Logstopper
Nimon Chomsky Rugripper
Brandie Nastenka Pfinger
Froy Memora Nosewater
Xandy Zinca Black
Quiana Clishmaclaver
Bunya Sonny Wheeler
Lucifer Aglaya Jackleharp
Ally Bonner Zimley
Idalee Lesa Nickleby
Katima Opalor
Skip Tab Islip
Valterra Denver Windbottom
Velvet Lizzy Waters
Jetsam Gates
Stormy Angina Looney
Isanne Steffie Borington
Ariela Channery Bair
Zogg Tamber Spooner
Freon Brainard Graham
Phuel Trish Ding
Blaze Cloud Lockeroff
Laken Nutmeg Rhodes
Daj Randilyn Klosterfuch
Dijom Channery Eyelip
Freon Zabrina Poon
Maynard Feveria Jones
Xeno Hemp Wang
Chelsi Starr Fish
Artsie Hollie Cross
Skye Mystery Mooney
Bunt Modos Irwaks
Jimmy Pru Crampono

If you need help with specific character names and the Character Name Generator isn’t quite working out for you, sign up for a free Wordlab membership and post a New Topic to the Character Names group Forum, and members of the Wordlab community will jump in and help you out. And see all the other name generators on our Name Generators page.

Monty Python, “Rock Notes”, from the album, Monty Python’s Contractual Obligations (1980). Performer/Writer: Eric Idle. Great inspiration for anybody faced with naming their band. Also inspiring is Wordlab’s Rock Band Names List and Band Name Generator. And if you sign up for a free membership to Wordlab, you can post your band naming project as a New Topic in the Band Names group Forum.

The clip below is a more recent performance by Eric Idle, with original the transcription below that:

Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad the Wet Sprocket has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland. Flamboyant ambidextrous Rex apparently fell off the back of a motorcycle. “Fell off the back of a motorcyclist, most likely,” quipped ace drummer Jumbo McCluney upon hearing of the accident. Plans are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland.

Dead Monkeys are to split up again, according to their manager, Lefty Goldblatt. They’ve been in the business now ten years, nine as other groups. Originally the Dead Salmon, they became for a while, Trout. Then Fried Trout, then Poached Trout In A White Wine Sauce, and finally, Herring. Splitting up for nearly a month, they re-formed as Red Herring, which became Dead Herring for a while, and then Dead Loss, which reflected the current state of the group. Splitting up again to get their heads together, they reformed a fortnight later as Heads Together, a tight little name which lasted them through a difficult period when their drummer was suspected of suffering from death. It turned out to be only a rumor and they became Dead Together, then Dead Gear, which lead to Dead Donkeys, Lead Donkeys, and the inevitable split up. After nearly ten days, they reformed again as Sole Manier, then Dead Sole, Rock Cod, Turbot, Haddock, White Baith, the Places, Fish, Bream, Mackerel, Salmon, Poached Salmon, Poached Salmon In A White Wine Sauce, Salmon-monia, and Helen Shapiro. This last name, their favorite, had to be dropped following an injunction and they split up again. When they reformed after a recordbreaking two days, they ditched the fishy references and became Dead Monkeys, a name which they stuck with for the rest of their careers. Now, a fortnight later, they’ve finally split up.

[This paragraph is in the original, in between the other two paragraphs, but not in the YouTube clip version above.] [--Divorced after only eight minutes, popular television singing star, Charisma, changed her mind on the way out of the registry office, when she realized she had married one of the Donkeys by mistake. The evening before in LA's glittering nightspot, the Abitoir, she had proposed to drummer Reg Abbot of Blind Drunk, after a whirlwind romance and a knee-trembler. But when the hangover lifted, it was Keith Sly of the Donkeys who was on her arm in the registry office. Keith, who was too ill to notice, remained unsteady during thes thrt ceremony and when asked to exchange vows, began to recite names and addresses of people who also used the stuff. Charisma spotted the error as Keith was being carried into the wedding ambulance and became emotionally upset. However, the mistake was soon cleared up, and she stayed long enough to consummate their divorce.--]