Bad Brand Names: 5 Mistakes That Hurt Memorability

Naming has a few ground rules. I came across a brand that breaks (almost) all of them.

A recent shopping experience reminded me how quickly a weak name can get lost — even when the product itself is appealing.

I’m scrolling through Instagram when I get served an ad for a blouse. It’s pretty cute, so I tap, scroll through the brand’s site, look at the blouse from this way and that, then get distracted by something else and move on.

You know what happens next.

Every time I open the app over the next week, without fail, I see the same ad again. A short-sleeved button-down with a small tie that cinches the waist. Like I said, cute.

So when payday rolls around, I open my phone, card in hand, ready to order it.

Except… I blank.

I have absolutely no idea what the brand is called. Not even a vague guess.

Within a few hours, the algorithm delivers the ad again and I finally see the name: RIHOAS.

R-I-H-O-A-S.

Seeing it again immediately sparked a familiar thought: this is exactly the kind of problem a weak brand name creates. The product had done its job. The ads had done their job. But the name had failed to stick.

That experience captures something I think about often in my work as a naming consultant. A brand name is a single word that carries an enormous amount of weight. When it works, it helps an idea travel effortlessly. When it doesn’t, it quietly introduces friction at every step — remembering, recommending, searching, trusting.

Most bad brand names fail in predictable ways. Here are a few of the most common.

1. Make it hard to pronounce

The first rule of naming is simple: people should feel comfortable saying the name out loud.

The first interaction someone has with a brand shouldn’t be a puzzle. If someone hesitates before saying a name — unsure of how it’s pronounced — they’re less likely to repeat it in conversation.

This matters more than founders sometimes realize. Word-of-mouth is still one of the most powerful ways brands spread. But it only works if people feel confident sharing the name.

Even psychology weighs in here. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman references research showing that companies with more pronounceable names tend to perform better in their first week on the stock market. Familiarity and fluency create a subtle sense of trust.

A brand name shouldn’t require a pronunciation guide.

2. Make it hard to spell

Spelling matters for a simple reason: people need to find you again.

Even if I had remembered seeing the name of that blouse brand, it’s unlikely I would have typed it into Google correctly enough for the search engine to help me.

This issue shows up often in names with:

• unusual letter combinations

• heavy vowel clusters

• creative spellings

• numbers replacing words (Friends4Life, Good2Go)

• acronym-style constructions

If a name requires explanation — “It’s spelled like this…” — it’s already creating friction.

Good brand names remove friction. They don’t add it.

3. Name by committee

Another common path to a weak name is the dreaded whiteboard session.

Many founders try to generate a name by gathering everyone involved in the company and brainstorming together. The intention is understandable: get everyone aligned and walk out with a decision.

But naming rarely works that way.

The pressure to find something everyone agrees on often pushes the process toward safe, constructed solutions — acronyms, blended attributes, or ideas that feel technically acceptable but lack any real spark.

In the case of the brand I mentioned earlier, the name turns out to be an acronym built from a list of brand attributes.

This approach tends to produce names that feel engineered rather than discovered. And while the logic may make sense internally, customers rarely see the rationale behind it.

They just encounter the word.

4. Default to a founder name

Another naming pattern I frequently talk founders out of is simply using their own name.

Founder names can work well in certain contexts — especially for artists, designers, or personality-driven brands where the creator’s identity is part of the appeal.

But for many companies, a founder name doesn’t give people much to hold onto. It’s often less distinctive, less memorable, and harder to scale beyond the individual.

It can also create complications later on. What happens if the brand grows beyond the founder, or changes ownership? What happens if the company becomes larger than the personal identity attached to it?

A brand name should ideally point forward, not anchor the company too tightly to one person.

5. Ignore what makes the brand interesting

The most surprising thing about researching the blouse brand was discovering that their strategy actually had an interesting idea behind it.

The company describes its inspiration as coming from classic European cinema — the visual elegance, the romance, the artistry of female characters on screen.

That’s a compelling starting point.

Strategy is where good naming begins. When a brand understands what makes it distinct, the naming process becomes far more fertile. A clear position opens the door to associations, cultural references, imagery, and tone.

Without that strategic clarity, names tend to drift toward generic constructions or invented words that could belong to almost anything.

With it, the possibilities become far more memorable.

The point of naming rules

All of these guidelines have exceptions. Plenty of successful brands break one or two of them.

But the strongest names tend to share a few qualities: they’re easy to say, easy to remember, and they give the mind something to grab onto.

A good brand name doesn’t need to explain everything. It just needs to create the right kind of signal — something that makes the idea easier to recall, repeat, and recognize the next time someone encounters it.

And when that happens, the name starts doing its job quietly in the background, helping the brand travel a little further each time it’s spoken.

If you're working on a brand or product name, strategy is always the starting point.

Get in touch to discuss a project.

Originally published on The Nameist Substack, where Emma Bryant writes about brand naming, language, and the strategy behind memorable names.

FAQ - What Makes a Bad Brand Name?
A bad brand name creates friction. It may be difficult to pronounce, hard to spell, or disconnected from the brand’s strategy, making it harder for people to remember and recommend. At The Nameist, we create names for brands that succeed across seven proven metrics.