Making of a Name

How do brand names differ from other names, and what goes into making a good name great and a bad name ghastly? Knowing this can spell the difference between bankruptcy and marketplace triumph. In this indispensable guide, the authors share the secrets of successful brand names--how they've indelibly stamped cultures around the world; who makes them; why they're made; and how they're compiled, bought, sold, and protected. The book outlines what kind of names exist--the initialized, descriptive, allusive, and coined. How namers surf on brainwaves. The do's, don'ts, and nevers of naming, how the structure of names is built from the ground up and how their sounds are engineered. Why names symbolize benefits. Where in the world brands may be found, and what will become of them. Fast-paced, illustration-packed, gazing at the past and probing into the future, this is the definitive book on naming. The Making of A Name is the one book anyone interested in "owned words" must have. "Right now, all over America, millions of freelancers are starting companies, inventing products and marketing their services. Whether they're laid-off dot-com kids or unfulfilled Boomers, they have one thing in common--they all need names. Sadly for them, there's no book on the market that lays out the process. Rivkin and Sutherland's book will fill that gap. It's packed with useful 'how to' as well as tales both inspiring and cautionary: back-stories on the brand names we know--and why we love or hate them." --Laurie Pollock, formerly Senior Partner, Planning Director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in New York

Steve Rivkin, the proprietor of the highly successful U.S. naming consultancy Rivkin & Associates, is the co-author of many books on branding, among them IdeaWise, The New Positioning, and Differentiate or Die, which have sold in the hundreds of thousands. A Canadian, Fraser Sutherland is the author of 11 books. As an editor he's been involved in major dictionary projects spread across three countries.