Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick

Alexandra Watkins’ Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick is a practical guide to picking inventive company names and mastering the art of branding. Mrs. Watkins’ marketing handbook provides the reader with the necessary information to successfully name a company or product. Her branding expertise and humorous writing style make this marketing guide to branding a must read. The name is a huge part of a product and the branding associated with it. Mrs. Watkins attempts to help the everyday entrepreneur avoid the pitfalls of unclear and whacky company names. Keeping in mind the 5 qualities of a super-sticky name and the seven deadly sins, one can arrive at the perfect company name while promoting a desired brand strategy around a product or service. In Watkins’ guide, she determines a tipping point when it comes to company and product naming. Entrepreneurs and business owners must struggle with the difficult task of standing out from the crowd while engineering an understandable and fitting name for a company or product line. Small details must be thought over and the smallest intricacies can make one brand name lasting and effective and another confusing and ineffective. Brand names serve as a first impression between consumers and producers. Watkins believes that a satisfactory company or brand name should turn heads, generate buzz and spark sales. Brand names characterize a company or product in a few simple words or a short phrase. The brand name is the single most important marketing attribute of a company and can doom a company from the start if not given enough attention. Following Mrs. Watkins’ tips to creating lasting brand names can make or break a company before its’ products or service are even produced and released in the consumer market for consumption. Alexandra Watkins does a great job in explaining her criteria and process for generating effective and lasting brand names. Her ideas are well backed up with satisfactory examples and real life instances where her method was implemented to create real brand names used in the market today. Watkins believes that, “the most powerful brand names connect with people and move them to buy because they are based on familiar words and concepts that they understand and appreciate.” In fact, Alexandra Watkins mentions Kryptonite locks, Mayday tech support, Obsession perfume, Leap Frog toys and Ninja blenders as companies with brand names that speak volumes. She believes that a brand name tells the story a producer wants to get across to its potential customers. Following her method will ensure a practical brand name that clearly explains the overall aura attached to a product. However, she also cites the many pitfalls associated with brand naming. Some of the companies she identifies as lacking in the brand-naming department include: Sur La Table, Iams, Flickr, Saucony, Eukanuba and Xobni. The author provides many real life examples to back up her argument for successful brand naming, while at the same time citing companies who failed at creating effective brand names. I believe that if followed correctly and analyzed in the correct way, Alexandra Watkins provides a sound method for brand naming. She is very successful in her interpretation of powerful brand names and the importance of an effective brand name. She provides the reader with the proper tools and prepares them for the difficult task of brand naming. Though her system isn’t foolproof by any sense of the imagination, it can give someone struggling to find a suitable company name a push in the right direction. I would recommend this book to any entrepreneur or future business owner who may one day struggle with the task of engineering a suitable brand name. If the task of brand naming is something you’ll ever have to deal with, reading Watkins’ guide for anything more than entertainment would be a waste of time. However her writing style and interjected humor make it an easy read and gives flair to what seems to be a pretty bland topic. All in all, I would recommend this book to any company or entrepreneur making or slated to make a decision in brand or product naming.

This book is such a joy to read and unbelievably helpful! It cuts through the nonsense and gives you clear, thoughtful tools that actually make naming feel doable. I laughed, learned, and kept stopping to rethink names I’d lived with for years! After reading it, I did end up working directly with Alexandra Watkins, and she is truly just as brilliant and hilarious in person as she is on the page! If you need to name anything, I recommend this wholeheartedly, full stop!! 💯✨

There is a lot of useful information in this book about how to name a business. There were a lot of tips about what names to avoid as well. The main issue is that it is only 80 pages and it was advertised as being over 100 pages. The book is literally tiny, and can be read in about 3 hours easily. I would have liked to see a bit more depth. The book could have been more quantative as well. Often the names which are listed as good are just the opinion of the author. It works okay for this book, but it might have been useful to try and measure how good a name is. The author hardly ever references anyone but her own company which felt self promotional. Overall, this is a good place to start for learning how to name a business. It is not a definitive guide and provides little cross references.

UPDATED REVIEW!!! Ever since I read the 1st edition of "Hello, My Name Is Awesome" last year, which was AMAZING, I've been addicted to learning more about how to come up with brand names that POP. Alas, even after all of this time though, it seems like the "market" hasn't caught up. I still only found random "scientific hacks" and graphs about coming up with brand names. Nothing exciting. Just more soulless, hard to read/speak words. I was bummed out. But when I heard the 2nd edition of "Hello, My Name Is Awesome" just published, I knew I had to jump on it ASAP. Even if all it was just extra examples, I would have been pumped. The moment I opened it up, I was floored. Sequels are usually a hit or miss, but Alexandra hit a homerun. The 2nd edition felt like an almost completely new book. It was updated with tons of new examples, the resources alone are worth thousands of dollars you would normally have to pay up in consulting, she revealed completely new ways of thinking about brand names, everything that was possibly missing in the 1st edition was covered in the 2nd edition, and way, way more. It's already given me ideas for my next ecommerce business. Long story short, if you already own the 1st edition, you NEED the 2nd edition. If you don't own either, then what are you waiting for? :) -- -- Recently, I started a premium men's activewear brand and was really having a hard time coming up with a brand name that would really POP in such a hyper-competitive field. So I started Googling for every possible site on naming your business and I came across hundreds of articles. Unfortunately, 99.99% of all I found was useless. Then I heard about this book. Once I got it and read it, I literally said to myself... "I wish I read this book YEARS ago!" It's not a big book at all, which I think is a plus. Instead, it's a no-fluff guide to coming up with really awesome business names. Don't expect boring advice like adding "ly" or deleting vowels in your name like every other startup brand these days. With this book, you'll come up with shocking and fun names that really make you feel something once you read them. Apparently, the author is a former Ogilvy & Mather copywriter. So you're not going to get weird mathematical formulas either. She treats her brand names like she would a million dollar headline. It's all about emotions and being remembered. That means amazing brand names, which there are many examples of inside this book. There are also tons of examples of what makes a bad name. Honestly, this could have been called "The Definitive Guide To Coming Up With Amazing Brand Names Fast", because it is. Of course, its current title is better. With that said, I can't recommend this book enough. If you're looking to come up with a new business name, there's no better resource.

I loved reading this book and understanding the underpinnings of how brand names are generated. A wealth of information and a quick read. Enjoyable!

Wow! And I say this with complete honesty. Some may think I am a bit jaded as my company name appears in the book! I can honestly say, that because as I was mentioned in the book, I read it with closer scrutiny. I read it before it was published and pre-ordered my copy and am glad I did, because not only did the book make the bestseller list in it's category, but it may just end up with a second printing (and I could not wait that long). It is important for people to know immediately how critical this book is to their business. I am happy to be able to write a review on the day it hit the shelves. I received my copy today and began reading it all over again. This book has an index, and even an "Ask Alexandra" section at the end. You do not have to be a large company, (and most of these projects start at $50,000) to use this book for naming your company or its products. Alexandra offers ways that teach you how to help yourself, through her brand tests in the book that include the "SMILE" and "SCRATCH" that are not only creative, but spot on for steering you in the right direction. This is not a "throw spaghetti at the wall" way to investigate your branding, but a tried-and-proven-to-be-successful way of learning how to brand products and services correctly. The price is right, and at 98 pages, you can get through it quickly. Read it a few times and take notes and do the homework. It will pay off! I can tell you from experience in working with this brilliant woman, everything she writes here is done with nothing but integrity - and humor! It has to be fun! And she makes a task that many are not only afraid of, but have no idea where to start, enjoyable. Seriously. Really enjoyable!

Hello, My Name is Awesome was such a helpful book as we were going through the process of naming our business. Alexandra has the best tools and techniques for brainstorming and making you sure you avoid common pitfalls. The book perfectly laid out a strategy around how best to create the name that is right for your project. We wouldn't be landing on our perfect name without it.

The book is well-organized, fun, and easy to read. There are a lot of amusing examples and clear instructions of how to get started on how to revamp or create a sticky brand. This book fits into the tiered monetization method of an expensive book, a more expensive course, and a very expensive consultation. My critique comes from the perspective of an entrepreneur with a boring business name (B2B). I need more exercises to get the creative juices flowing. I wish this book came with a workbook. If so, it would get 5-stars.

Amazing book! I realized how wrong I was with my previous names, and thanks to this book I found the best name for my brand.

There are two things that I especially loved about this book: 1. It is super actionable with an outside-the-box framework that helps you name your business in a way that doesn't make your customers want to die when they see it. 2. It is short and free of the typical marketing book bullshit. I read the book in two sittings. Just going through naming my podcast and the process laid out in the book is beyond helpful. I think the book also convinced me to rename my business. Which I am not sure if I should feel excited or upset about.

I run a startup and we were facing a potential legal battle over our name just before the launch of our product. One of my advisors pointed me in the direction of Hello My Name is Awesome. The book was an extremely easy read. The guidance is clear and practical and the tone is engaging and fun. The processes laid out in the book made it really easy to engage the whole company and our advisory board. In only a few days the individual brainstorming exercises enabled us to generate hundreds of different candidate names, and develop a great shortlist before we used the "SMILE" and "SCRATCH" tests to pick a winner that was perfectly in line with our brand. In addition to reducing a serious legal risk to our business, we found a name that we believe is even better than the one we originally had. Alexandra's guidance also enabled me to get a memorable domain name for only $15. I thoroughly recommend this book and will definitely be using it again in the future. I will also be recommending it to the other startups I work with around the world.

I don't read 1 star reviews anymore. For a while I have been findind them intentionally misleading. After reading this book one sounds at least like the author hasn't really gone beyond the cover let alone through workflow process Alexandra follows and suggests. It is the very thing he or she finds missing. Strange. I red the whole book in 2 days, which is fast for me considering the time on my hand. I was so inspired by Alexandra I named our offices while reading it. I intend to use her workflow of solo brainstorming for not just branding though. Not to mention the book is actually really fun to read.

Great read -- Valuable knowledge and entertaining. I used it heavily to name my new startup and I'm very happy with the result. Also, it's fun to see all the brand names in the world through a different lens now.