Every founder eventually meets that name: the one everyone in the room falls in love with. The whiteboard goes quiet. The Slack channel lights up with heart emojis. Your designer is already mocking up a logo. And yet…something in your gut says, “This might not be it.”
When the room is emotionally attached, killing a weak name can feel like killing momentum. But if you don’t, the market will do it for you—later, at a much higher cost.
This article shows you how to objectively eliminate weak names, even when everyone loves them, and how to get your team aligned around better naming decisions.
Why Group Enthusiasm Is Not Evidence
When a name lands in a workshop and everyone lights up, it feels like validation. But that reaction is often driven by dynamics that have nothing to do with market fit or long-term brand strength.
Here’s why group enthusiasm is a dangerous signal to rely on:
- Familiarity bias: Names that sound like things we already know (Uber, Stripe, Slack) feel “right” simply because they’re familiar, not because they’re strong.
- Social pressure: If one influential person loves a name—the founder, investor, or creative lead—others tend to quickly follow suit.
- Recency effect: The name you heard last can feel better than it actually is, simply because it’s fresh in everyone’s mind.
- Workshop fatigue: After hours of brainstorming, people want closure. The first name that feels “good enough” can get over-celebrated.
Enthusiasm is useful—it tells you a name is at least emotionally resonant with your internal team. But it is not evidence. To make strong naming decisions, you need a clear, objective way to evaluate names and, when necessary, kill the darlings.
Step 1: Anchor to Strategy Before You Touch Names
The easiest way to kill a beloved-but-weak name is to show clearly that it doesn’t serve the strategy you already agreed on.
Before you ever debate names, you should have a simple, written naming strategy. At minimum, document:
Positioning
- Who are we for?
- What problem do we solve?
- How do we want to be perceived (e.g., bold, safe, premium, playful)?
Naming objectives
- Do we want to be descriptive (what we do), suggestive (what it feels like), or abstract (open to interpretation)?
- Are we building for global reach or a specific geography?
- Do we need high domain availability, or is a modifier acceptable?
Constraints
- Legal/industry restrictions
- Words, themes, or categories we must avoid
- Languages or cultures we must be sensitive to
Once this is agreed, it becomes your decision filter. A beloved name that doesn’t align with the agreed strategy is much easier to challenge without making it personal.
“It’s not that the name is bad. It just doesn’t match the strategic brief we all signed off on.”
That reframes the conversation from taste to alignment.
Step 2: Create a Simple, Shared Scoring System
To avoid emotional arguments, you need a scoring system that everyone understands and accepts before they know which names are being evaluated.
A simple scoring framework for startup names might look like this:
Score each name from 1–5 on: 1. Strategic fit - Does it match our positioning and naming objectives? 2. Distinctiveness - Does it stand out clearly from competitors and adjacent categories? 3. Memorability - Is it easy to remember after hearing it once? 4. Pronunciation & spelling - Can most people say and spell it correctly on first try? 5. Flexibility & longevity - Will it still work if we expand our product line or market? Optional bonus: 6. Emotional resonance (for the *customer*, not just the team)
Have each person score individually and silently. Then average the scores.
This accomplishes three things:
- Reduces the influence of loud voices and hierarchy.
- Surfaces concerns people might hesitate to raise out loud.
- Gives you quantitative evidence when a “favorite” scores poorly.
When a loved name comes in with a 2.3 on distinctiveness and a 2.0 on longevity, it becomes clear that the excitement might not stand up to scrutiny.
Step 3: Run the Name Through Objective Filters
Before you argue about nuance, check the basics. A name that fails any of these should be put on hold or killed, no matter how much people like it.
1. Trademark and Legal Risk
A name that can’t be protected or is likely to trigger a dispute is a liability.
- Do a preliminary trademark search in key markets (e.g., USPTO in the US, EUIPO in Europe).
- Look for similar marks in your category, not just identical ones.
- If your category is crowded or regulated, consider a quick consult with a trademark attorney before falling in love.
If the name is clearly crowded or risky, you can say:
“We’re seeing significant legal risk here. Continuing with this name could mean a forced rebrand later. Let’s not build our brand on a fault line.”
2. Domain and Handle Reality
You don’t need the exact .com match to launch, but you do need a viable digital identity.
Check:
- Reasonable domain options (e.g.,
getname.com,nameapp.com, or relevant TLDs). - Major social handles for conflicts or confusing near-matches.
- Whether there are existing brands with similar names in adjacent categories that might cause confusion.
If you’re forced into awkward, hard-to-remember URLs or handles, that’s a mark against the name—especially if better options exist.
3. Linguistic and Cultural Checks
If you’re operating in multiple languages or regions, basic linguistic checks are non-negotiable:
- Does the name have unintended meanings in key languages?
- Is it hard to pronounce or embarrassing to say out loud?
- Does it resemble slang, offensive words, or sensitive terms?
Even if your team loves it, a name that confuses or alienates real customers is a dead end.
Step 4: Test the Name Outside the Room
A name that crushes in a founder workshop can fall flat the second it meets reality. Testing doesn’t have to be expensive or slow, but it should be structured.
1. The “Blind Introduction” Test
Ask people outside your team (ideally from your target audience) questions like:
- “If you heard this name with no context, what kind of company would you think it is?”
- “On a scale of 1–10, how trustworthy/innovative/approachable does this name feel?”
- “Does this name remind you of any other brands?”
Do this for multiple names, not just the favorite. You’re looking for:
- Misalignment with the intended positioning.
- Strong associations with existing brands.
- Confusion about category or offering.
If your team’s darling name consistently gets misinterpreted or compared to competitors, that’s a signal.
2. The “Radio Test”
Say the name out loud, once, in a sentence:
“We’re [Name], and we help [audience] do [outcome].”
Then ask people to write down what they heard.
If they mis-hear it, misspell it, or struggle to recall it 10 minutes later, you have a memorability and clarity problem—no matter how much your team loves it.
3. The “Future Headlines” Test
Imagine your company 5–10 years from now:
- “[Name] Raises $100M to Transform [Industry]”
- “Customers Choose [Name] for [Outcome]”
Does it sound credible? Mature? Too cute? Too narrow?
This test is especially helpful for killing names that feel clever in the room but won’t age well.
Step 5: Separate Personal Taste from Business Criteria
Founders and teams often attach to names for reasons that have nothing to do with the brand:
- It references an inside joke.
- It’s based on a favorite movie, band, or character.
- It emerged from a particularly fun workshop moment.
- It feels like a “win” after a long, frustrating search.
To move past this, explicitly separate:
- Personal preference: “I love this.”
- Business fit: “This serves our strategy and customers.”
In a workshop, you can codify this distinction:
- Let everyone share a personal favorite and a strategic favorite.
- Capture both, but make it clear that only the strategic favorite drives decisions.
When a name everyone “personally loves” doesn’t show up in the strategic favorite column—or scores poorly on your framework—you have a clean, non-emotional reason to let it go.
Step 6: Use Clear, Neutral Language to Kill the Name
How you kill a beloved name matters. If you do it clumsily, you create resistance and frustration. If you do it well, you build trust in the naming process itself.
Use language that:
- Points back to the agreed strategy.
- References objective criteria, not subjective dislike.
- Leaves the door open for elements of the idea to be reused.
For example:
“This name clearly got a lot of love in the room, and that’s valuable. But when we run it against the criteria we agreed on—distinctiveness, long-term flexibility, and legal risk—it doesn’t hold up as well as some of the others.
Rather than forcing a name that might limit us later, let’s capture what we liked about it (the tone, the energy, the metaphor) and find a stronger option that carries those same qualities with fewer drawbacks.”
This shifts the conversation from “we’re killing your idea” to “we’re protecting the business and preserving the best parts of this idea.”
Step 7: Align the Founder Group Around the Process, Not the Favorite
For multi-founder teams, naming can become a proxy battle for deeper disagreements: vision, risk tolerance, or brand personality. The name everyone loves can become a political symbol.
To avoid that, get alignment on process first, choices second.
Before you vote on any name, agree on:
- The criteria you’ll use (strategy, distinctiveness, longevity, etc.).
- The weighting of each criterion (e.g., strategic fit > domain availability).
- The decision model:
- Single decision-maker (often the CEO).
- Consensus with a tie-breaker.
- Shortlist created by team, final call by founder.
Once everyone signs off on the process, it’s easier to accept outcomes—even when a beloved name doesn’t make it.
You can remind the group:
“We committed to this process to protect us from falling in love with the wrong name. The fact that we’re feeling some loss here is actually a sign it’s working.”
Common Red Flags That Mean You Should Kill the Name
If any of these are true, your “everyone loves it” name is probably a liability:
- It feels like a pun or joke. Fun now, cringey later.
- It locks you into a narrow product or feature. Problematic when you expand.
- It’s one letter away from a major competitor or brand. Confusing and risky.
- You’re spending more time justifying it than testing it. Emotional attachment over evidence.
- You’re ignoring clear negative feedback from real customers. Internal enthusiasm ≠ market validation.
Use this as a quick checklist during your naming decisions and brand workshops.
Turning a Killed Name Into Forward Momentum
Killing a name everyone loves doesn’t have to kill energy. In fact, it can increase confidence if you do three things:
Acknowledge the loss
“It’s normal to feel disappointed. We put a lot of energy into this.”Celebrate what you learned
“Now we know what kind of tone and direction gets us excited—that’s valuable input.”Move quickly to the next step
Don’t let the team sit in limbo. Immediately shift to refining the shortlist or generating new options that better fit the criteria.
By treating naming as an iterative, evidence-driven process—not a lightning-strike moment—you build a stronger brand foundation and healthier founder alignment.
Conclusion: Strong Brands Survive the Death of a Darling
A name that everyone loves in the room but fails in the real world is a costly mistake: legal headaches, confused customers, forced rebrands, and lost momentum.
When you:
- Anchor to a clear naming strategy,
- Use shared, objective criteria,
- Test names outside the room,
- Separate taste from business fit, and
- Align founders around process instead of favorites,
…you give yourself permission to kill weak names before the market does it for you.
Group enthusiasm is a data point, not a decision. The strongest founders—and the strongest brands—are willing to walk away from a beloved name when the evidence says it won’t carry them where they need to go.