Names are important, right? We all have one, we respond to it, we know others by them and specifically for gaming, some of our most beloved, cherished memories are associated with specific names of games, or characters, or even platforms. Mario, Sonic, Master Chief, Zelda, just a few character names that have a deep, personal connection for millions of players worldwide. Franchises like Call of Duty, FIFA, Halo, Skyrim… we all can immediately recall and know what someone is talking about when mentioned. Many a debate has been had over whether PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo is the better games platform but then we’re getting into brand and player loyalty, which stems from a number of reasons we won’t get into here.
I’ve been asked to assist people with naming games, companies or services a number of times over the years, either just to friends and associates or specifically because work activities required it. I thought I’d go through some of them, the thought process, incidental outcomes and then some advice for when thinking of a name.
Getting to the point
I think one of the earliest names I came up with was for a friend’s web development business. They wanted something that conjured up associations with cutting through the noise, getting through barriers, nothing stopping the outcome of success (admittedly it was a long time ago and my memory is a little hazy but it was around these ideas). Thankfully at the time, the friend in question with their business associate had perfect initials that formed GAMMA, when adding Associates to their <first><surname<first><surname> letters.
Gamma (Media) was a name to capture all their desires in terms of what their name would mean, the concepts visualised; associated with rays it conjures up thoughts of penetration, getting through everything other than the strongest of shielding. Related to waves, it’s fastest form of brain activity associated with deep thought, insight and peak experience. For what would go on to become a company associated with training, learning and development, it was the perfect name.
Enhancing beauty
A few years later, a [ex-]girlfriend was looking at setting up a business on eBay selling shoes and handbags she purchased wholesale and resold at a markup. This was before Vinted, Shein and Temu enabled reselling of old clothes or fast-fashion to be dropshipped cheaply online.
To be fair, here there was no underlying desire or name requirements, just something that was catchy, short and available. The thought process matched that and by lopping off a couple of letters, Shoba was born. It wasn’t until she was attending a wholesale event to obtain new stock, we found out that the name in Hindi means “beautiful”, commonly used as a girl’s name, deriving from the Sanskrit root shubh, meaning to shine, or look beautiful. For fashion items I think we got lucky with that naming choice. Although it’s always wise to understand other uses, or meanings from other languages; in Urdu it means “office” or “branch”, not such a glamourous association.
Puns-a-plenty
Working at a studio carrying out mostly WFH development for clients, where 100+ immersive experiences were deployed across a variety of platforms, meant a constant need for internal and client-facing project names. Being British, many of these had a pun association, being a popular form of humour.
I think my favourite name, albeit sadly rejected by the client so an alternative was required, was “Plandemic”, a name given to a serious game related to task and time management (more exciting than it sounds!) for a call centre use case. The final name “The Prioritiser” was still a vague pun on everyones’ favourite 80’s TV show actor, Ewar Woowar.
Radial-G was quite an easy concoction, since we were making a VR game about high-speed racing around tubes so links to circles, g-forces etc came naturally. However it was actually the artist hired to design the logo who added the “: Racing Revolved” subtitle, which was frankly genius and as a pun-lover, I kicked myself for not thinking of it myself.
Onto the next VR game for the studio, Loco Dojo - this really perplexed us for a long time before settling on the name days before announcing and launch. In fact if you look at the install files on PC VR, I think it still has the internal project name shown, “Touch Game” (it was funded and designed as a showcase game for Oculus Touch motion-tracked input controllers at the time).
When the game finally got greenlit for release on the Oculus Quest platform store, where it required association but something to differentiate it from the original PC VR release, the extended name just made sense. Loco Dojo Unleashed was a nice play on the fact that the experience was on the first untethered consumer “Full VR” (6DoF) device, with expanded gameplay modes and content, over the predecessor which had been only available on tethered PC VR before.
Choosing a name
So coming up with a name on its own is hard enough, but then you have to go through the rigmarole of checking suitability, searchability and ultimately selection. Below are some things to check when coming up with a name for a company, brand, product or game:
What does it mean? Is there a story behind it? Founder initials or a specific related term? It should convey the why or the what it represents.
Is it easy to spell (& pronounce)? Your name will not grow if people can’t remember how to type it on a keyboard or tell others about it (including voice assistants like Alexa or Siri).
Is it unique and distinctive? Does it stand out? Is it memorable?
Does it pass the vibe check? Does the name sound like your company, brand or product should?
Does it scale? Does any part of the name limit the company, brand or product to one thing only?
Does it sound good to you? If you’re going to be saying and typing it regularly, you’ve got to like it, be proud to do so and have confidence when you say it!
Once you’ve decided upon or short-listed a name, carry out the following checks for suitability:
First and foremost, Google it to see what or who else out there already uses that name and for what purpose. If the name is already copyrighted or trademarked, then you will likely run into issues later when your name become successful enough to clash with the owners of the other uses. This is especially more relevant if your names share a similar space or operating environment.
Can you trademark it or apply copyright freely? Some good places to start are:
Following on from this is SEO suitability - is it common term with millions of results already? Are you going to have to pay for Google Ads to boost your ranking, if people are just searching for that word alone? e.g. Radial-G is also a popular brand of tyres.
Are the appropriate domains available? Not just the www. but are the social media handles available to use as is without having to attach subdomain identifiers or like a medium to the name. e.g. www.locodojo.com was already taken by a martial arts training centre but www.locodojogame.com was available so we had to use that.
Check translations - typically brand names do not get translated into other languages but the word you have chosen might have an alternative, offensive or negative connotation when not in English. e.g. you can Google the slang Italian meaning of SEGA!
The process of coming up with a name is fun but can be frustrating when you carry out the sense checks. However it’s always better to be safe than sorry from the start before it gains popularity! Good luck!
