In the process of naming, discussions of meaning and character rightfully receive most of the namer’s attention. “What is this name communicating? What does it imply about the product? Does it align with the brand personality traits we just spent a month agreeing on?”
But there’s one dimension that quietly shapes how a name is perceived long before meaning ever lands: how it looks. The question for us, of course, is whether there are reliable measures of beauty, and whether these judgements can be hard-coded into a name generator like Monika.
To glean some insight into name aesthetics, we spoke to typographer Rob Clarke and linguist Dr. John Elliott about what makes a name attractive, and how much it actually moves the naming needle.
John brings our attention to ascending and descending letters, and the detriments of imbalance. “A name like Hillivar has a bunch of ascenders early in the word, no matter the letter case. This creates some friction when you read it for the first time.”
There are both practical and creative considerations for ascending and descending letters. In a practical sense, tight clusters can make a name slightly more difficult to read at a glance. From a creative perspective, an awkward distribution of them has a way of contributing to the sense that a name looks a bit… off. Rob goes so far as to suggest that a lack of them “can make creating visual interest more challenging” when it comes time to design the wordmark.
Names that contain a repeating string of characters may also be welcoming to the eye. As John notes, “The construct of a rhyming name like Culture Vulture, in which -ulture is repeated twice, is easy to like. Beyond the pleasing phonetic attributes, it’s satisfying to look at and easy to process.”
“There’s also aesthetic value in simply containing rare letters such as Q, K and J, or common letters in uncommon places,” he argues. Names like QuickBooks and Kajabi achieve an attractive distinctiveness by deploying a measured balance of uncommon letters.
Wordmark design by Rob Clarke
Of course, what a name lacks in aesthetic appeal when typed in Arial or written in a notebook can often be resolved in design. Reflecting on one of his recent wordmarks, Rob notes that “The capital letters LA and RA create a large negative space; the lowercase ra also. BrandNew presented this spacing issue which we resolved by creating a ligature: a more flamboyant stroke of the ‘r’ that rises above the ‘a’.”
Wordmark design by Rob Clarke
That’s not to say that certain letters or bizarre neighbors can’t be a real nuisance to designers. “The collection of letters I’m presented with has a huge impact on what may be possible,” notes Rob. “I’ve never been a fan of the letter Z.”
For namers, these types of subtle design cues are often felt but rarely formalized. They contribute to “the vibe” of a name, but in a way that’s difficult for most people to articulate.
However, integrating beauty as a judgement criteria is likely to become more commonplace as AI becomes integrated with expert brand and product naming. It’s impossible for a human namer to hold every linguistic principle in their mind as they ideate names and assess them in real time, but with the help of expert-trained AI systems we’re not far from a future where these subtle traits are identified automatically, elevating or demoting a name within a team’s consideration set automatically.
At Monika, we’re taking steps to do just that. In the coming months, all names generated by our system will be interpreted through the lens of design – resulting in a minor promotion or demotion. This is not just with the goal of generating more appealing names on paper, but laying the groundwork for attractive wordmarks that can have a cascading effect on a brand’s visual identity.
Logo and type designers rejoice.
More by Rob Clarke: Website Instagram Threads LinkedIn
More by Dr. John Elliott: Website LinkedIn
