Appraisal
Run a name through the gates — the mechanical checks first, then the human ones you carry yourself.
The laws
Hard rules — clear these before anything else.
0
GREATNESS — never settle for generic
The hardest rule, above all others. NEVER settle for a generic, category-descriptive, sounds-professional name. Keystone / Meridian / Summit / Vantage / Vertex / Zenith / Atelier / Foundry / Cornerstone / any holding-Latin-mush = BANNED even when they clear every other gate — clearing the gates is the FLOOR, not the bar. The bar is GREAT: a name carrying a story, a POV, an unexpected pairing, a cultural-or-mythic reference that a client leans in and asks about, then repeats. Benchmarks: ByteDance · Bending Spoons.
0b
ACTIVITY, not location
The name must express the ACTIVITY — what the business DOES — not the location of incorporation or the founder's geography. ByteDance is Chinese but named for its activity, not "China". Never wear HK / China / Orient / Pearl / Jade / Cathay / Kowloon / Silk / Eastern / Monsoon labels just because that is where the paperwork sits. NAME THE VERB.
0c
Real words, not elvish coinage — the adult-warmth test
Invented/coined sounds read elvish-fantasy-geek and land COLD on a real adult business person. Regno / Aurel / Novar / Auren / Embra / Valen / Velor / Solen / Ryven — and the parfum-Latin Noirael / Aurvex / Noctavo / Sovaria / Ictova batch — all failed here: they mean nothing, evoke no image. Warm names are made of REAL, RECOGNISABLE WORDS that fire a concrete image the moment they are heard (a lotus in bloom; bytes dancing).
0d
Smart tech, not geek
When one half is a tech word, the WORD CHOICE decides geek vs mogul. Use broad, warm tech words an adult instantly pictures — pixel, signal, data, cloud, code, stream, pulse, wave, spark, current, digital, vector — NOT programmer jargon (kernel, hash, node, socket, cache, buffer, daemon, packet, root, commit, deploy).
0e
Laidback, not try-hard — the menace-tranquille test
Trying to sound powerful is the tell of the geeky kid who "wants to reign over the world". Flex words are BANNED as the soul-half: Reign, Crown, Throne, Empire, Dominion, Sovereign, Rule, Iron, Prime, Apex, Titan, Force, Power, Supreme, Elite, Alpha. The truly iconic names are laidback — ByteDance, Google, Amazon, Apple, Stripe, Meta, Uber — they never announce power, they imply it.
0f
The phone test — one word, writable on first hearing
The first filter run on every candidate. Say it ONCE on a phone; the listener must write it correctly with zero spelling help. ONE WORD ONLY (or a tight two-ultra-common-word compound). AUTO-FAIL: multi-word phrases · idiom-sentences · "The X of Y" · verb phrases · homophone-ambiguous letters (c/k/s, ph/f, -le/-el/-al, i/y) · silent letters · accents. A plain writable name beats a clever unwritable one every time.
0g
Not name slop — the anti-AI-averaging gate
AI namers do linguistic averaging: every output is short, punchy, vaguely technical, ending in a vowel or an x, or an [Adjective][Noun] compound (NovaTech / BrightPath / SwiftFlow). Documented-saturated 2026 tokens to AVOID: Nova · Flux · Pulse · Nexus/Nexum · Atlas · Orbit · Vectra/Vanta-class · Synth · Neural · Axera. THE TEST: would an off-the-shelf AI generator have produced this from a one-line brief? If yes = slop, kill it.
0h
First read — the dominant sense wins
A bare brand name is a zero-context read, and the DOMINANT (most frequent everyday) sense of each word wins the race. billing → invoices (not theatre credits); market → finance (not the town square). The intended read must BE the buyer's dominant everyday read. Operationalised by the cold-read probe (zero-context, third-person, ≥3 model families).
0i
Moldu friendliness
The name must read WARM and human to a non-tech regular person (a hairdresser, a shop owner — the actual buyer), not tech-SaaS-clever. Moldus do not buy workflow, they buy friendly help.
0j
Heard spelling — one obvious typing
Extends 0f: the spoken form must map to exactly ONE obvious spelling; a silent/dropped-vowel trap = fail (mane heard as "man" → manflo). Check the organic typo variant too: if users will mistype it, the wrong form must not be a competitor's domain.
The tests
Procedural gates run on every survivor.
buyer_invoice_test
The buyer invoice test
The killer gate. Say it out loud to a REAL client — "you'll see a charge from ______". The name must sound like a credible BUSINESS SERVICE on a card statement, not a consumer product. (Belvolta = water bottle · Medaljet = printer · Titanwon = crypto casino · Drumnova = music startup.)
both_parts_earn_their_place
Both parts earn their place
The automano law: every syllable must MEAN something (auto+mano = car+hand; hs+mate = HS-code+helper ≈ checkmate). Filler suffixes (-ano, -ora, -ify, -ly bolted on) = instant fail.
radio_test
Radio test
Spellable on first hearing over the phone. Kills x/q clusters, Latin coinages, ambiguous c/s, obscure words.
esl_test
ESL test
Made of simple international words (A1/A2: top, gold, star, king, fame, bell, medal, drum) or a perfectly phonetic coinage. Kills hawk-class words ESL buyers cannot picture or spell.
french_read_test
French read test
Say it with a French ear. Kills Saymont (≈saumon/salmon), TopSaid ("said" reads the Arabic name Saïd), Salvolta ("sale" = dirty). Any comic or off homophone in French = dead.
letter_phonosemantics
Letter phonosemantics
The initial letter carries the trust register: Z opens edgy/gaming/crypto; soft-solid initials (B, M, V, S, F, L) open trust. Match the initial to the register.
length_and_form
Length and form
TLD per RANKED_TLD_POLICY: .com default > <name>qualifier.com > .ai for AI-native > .io dev-only > .co weak; blacklist .xyz/.org/.net/novelty as a brand. ≤8 LETTERS (soft — 9-10 if genuinely distinctive), letters only, one word. Compounds: BOTH parts ≥3 letters AND both real meaningful words; 4+4 balanced splits beat 3+5.
register_fit
Register fit
Descriptive compounds read tool/SaaS (caps pricing power); pretty coinages read consumer/FMCG (fail the invoice test). Pick the register from the BUYER/brand-type BEFORE generating.
swap_test
Swap test
Replace the name with a competitor's in your messaging — if it still works, the name is generic.
wordplay_that_installs_itself
Wordplay that installs itself
The hsmate winner-factor: a play the listener gets free (hsmate ≈ checkmate) = zero marketing budget to explain. ⚠️ Polarity condition: the play only counts if gate 0h passes — both senses positive AND the dominant everyday sense is the intended one.
fluency_kill_rule
Fluency kill rule
If a stranger cannot pronounce it correctly on first sight of the written word, kill it. Alter & Oppenheimer: fluently-named stocks measurably outperformed disfluent ones post-IPO. No "it's pronounced…" brands, no misspelled real words.
context_render_test
Context render test
A name that survives list review can die instantly IN SITU — render finalists on a mock page/logo/invoice before locking. Cheapest gate with the highest observed save.
rankability_ai_entity_test
Rankability / AI entity test
Can you OWN the name's SERP and be entity-unambiguous to LLMs? Google it AND ask 2-3 LLMs "what is <name>?" pre-commit. Dictionary/common words (Apex, Nova, Orbit) are high-collision: the model resolves to a clearer, better-known entity.
outcome_not_mechanism
Outcome, not mechanism
Name the OUTCOME/promise, not the mechanism. Bonus: narrative scaling — prefer a name that auto-writes future messaging.
sound_symbolism_palette
Sound-symbolism palette (generation input)
Match mouth-feel to positioning: front vowels i/e = small/fast/light/sharp; back vowels o/u/a = big/rich/smooth/powerful. Plosives p/b/t/d/k/g = impact; fricatives f/v/s/z = speed/elegance. v = alive, b = reliable, z = attention, x = innovation.
position_against_the_category
Position against the category
Map competitors on the taxonomy Functional → Invented → Experiential → Evocative and name where the category ISN'T. Lexicon's polarisation signal: a name everyone is instantly comfortable with is wallpaper. NEVER focus-group a name.
linguistic_screen_all_markets
Linguistic screen — all markets
Native-speaker check in EVERY launch language. Mandarin + Cantonese are MANDATORY on any Latin name, and Cantonese is checked SEPARATELY from Mandarin. The disaster mode in Chinese is almost always homophonic, not semantic.