Naming at Scale: Practical Insight Into How Enterprise Naming Really Works

Expert guidance and real-world insight into the unsung challenges of creating and managing names, naming systems, and naming politics in business.

I designed this Substack to pull back the curtain on how brand naming works.

I looked around me and saw incredible brand leaders and naming practitioners with insanely in-depth knowledge on the intricacies of not just how to create names, but how to manage and operate naming at scale. I’m talking…

Naming systems, architecture, and portfolio strategies.
Naming across entire corporations.
Naming culture and politics.
Naming guidelines.

What is “Naming at Scale”?

I define Naming at Scale as the art and science of wrangling naming across an organization—from products to features to initiatives—so they work together cohesively to strengthen their overarching brand, while making life easier for everyone involved in creating and using them.

There’s a whole world of naming experts.

Fresh off hosting the first-ever brand naming conference, The Business of Naming, with Caitlin Barrett, now more than ever, I want to amplify the voices of those with naming expertise.

I’ll also be sharing my own thinking and experience as a naming industry veteran whose hair is continually blown back by how nuts brand naming is as a practice area. Since 2009, my agency, The Naming Group, has been helping corporations build market-leading names and manage complex naming systems. We’re the architects behind the brand names you know and love. We’ve done it for Chevrolet, Reebok, a really big bank with famous credit cards, and so many others.

At least once every month, I will use Naming at Scale to share with you not just my personal experience, but on-the-ground advice from people who have led naming at HP, ran marketing at General Motors, wrangled cats at Siegel+Gale, and beyond.

Why write about Naming at Scale?

Because basically no one else has.

And I can say from personal experience — the market is really asking for it

An ever-increasing number of the requests we get at The Naming Group are for designing, implementing, and managing brand-wide naming systems or naming architecture. And even when we’re tasked with naming an individual product or service, we must always consider it from the larger perspective of how that name will live amongst others within the company and the greater marketplace.

There are reams of posts from experts and jabronies alike on how to create an individual product or company name. There is almost nothing written about how modern brands are approaching naming—on a systems level.

Even Chat GPT reassured me of this dearth when I asked them about it:

“The gap in the literature tends to be around the practical, day-to-day challenges of implementing and maintaining naming architectures in complex organizations with multiple stakeholders and global considerations.”

If AI says it’s true, we can be sure.

The need for scalable naming systems has exploded as the pace and complexity of business has skyrocketed. Companies are launching new products faster than ever — one client of ours recently said their new product launch rate has quadrupled in just two years. Digitization has further accelerated name proliferation, with brands now needing names and cohesive naming systems that span products, digital platforms, and experiences, making naming a deeply interdisciplinary process that touches product, design, brand, marketing, and leadership. As trademarks become scarcer and brand differentiation more critical, organizations are recognizing naming as a powerful strategic tool — a once-overlooked discipline that now sits at the heart of modern brand building.

What will this Substack actually provide, though?

• Wisdom from smart people working at or with major brands who have dealt with real naming challenges and successes

• Naming insights that are truly applicable and useful

• Cool imagery to enrich these hot takes (if I don’t think it’s pretty, it’s hard for me to get excited about it)

• Generally, a good time and rich fodder for more conversation about navigating naming in modern business

Who cares?

Naming at Scale is for anyone who has felt that naming has been treated like a brand’s side quest, instead of its linchpin. Its for those who are asked to weigh in on naming (often too late in the process) or oversee enterprise-level naming. It will probably benefit brand and product manager folks, too.

Above all, Naming at Scale is for people who can use naming to move the needle on their business.

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