How Long Should a Brand Name Be?

Some not-so-strict rules of thumb for brand and product names.

No matter what kind of naming project comes across my desk, one request tends to appear almost every time:

Keep it short.

Sometimes the instruction is even more specific — six letters or fewer, please.

The logic is understandable. Short names feel efficient. They’re easier to remember, faster to say, and cleaner in logos, URLs, and app icons. In a market that values speed, short names are the polite, well-behaved children.

Underneath that instinct is an assumption: a name’s job is to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

And sometimes, that’s exactly right.

When Short Names Work Best

Short names tend to perform best when a brand is trying to become a habit.

These are products or services designed to slip quietly into daily life — and into the language people use to describe it.

I’ve been working on names in the vitamin and supplement space recently, a category built almost entirely around daily rituals. The ideal experience is that you don’t have to think too hard about the product. You take it every morning and move on.

Names in this category tend to minimize friction:

• Grüns

• Ritual

• Lemme

• Olly

• Hum

These names are quick to say and easy to remember. They don’t slow the user down. They simply become part of the routine.

In these cases, brevity helps the brand integrate seamlessly into everyday life.

When Longer Names Work

Not every brand wants to disappear quietly into someone’s routine.

Some names do the opposite.

They expand.

A few favorites:

• Youth to the People

• Once Upon a Farm

• Favorite Daughter

• Flamingo Estate

• Not Your Mother’s

• Comme des Garçons

These names don’t behave like shorthand. They function more like phrases or ideas.

A longer name can signal something beyond the product itself. It can introduce a point of view, a belief system, or a world the brand wants to inhabit.

Many of these names feel less like identifiers and more like rallying cries.

They often use relational language — people, mother, daughter, farm — words that hint at values before you even encounter the product.

Where Long Names Work Best

Longer names tend to succeed in two categories.

Values-Driven Consumer Brands

Food, beauty, and wellness brands often use longer names to signal intention.

Names like Youth to the People or Once Upon a Farm suggest purpose and care before you ever see the product itself. In these categories, a longer name doesn’t feel indulgent — it feels explanatory.

Fashion and Lifestyle Brands

Names like Favorite Daughter or Flamingo Estate don’t tell you what the product is. They tell you how the brand wants to feel.

They suggest a world, a personality, or a point of view. The curiosity they create is often the point.

In luxury brands, length can even act as a kind of taste filter.

A name like Comme des Garçons assumes a certain fluency from its audience. In luxury, friction isn’t always a problem — sometimes it’s part of the appeal.

Where Long Names Rarely Work

One category where we almost never see unwieldy names is tech.

Technology products rely on quick adoption and effortless usability. A complicated name risks signaling a complicated product.

And no one wants their technology to feel confusing.

Length Isn’t the Real Question

When I was in sixth grade, I had an English teacher — black coffee, no lipstick, permanently unimpressed — who would answer the question “How long should my paper be?” with the same response every time:

As long as a piece of string.

There are better ways to judge a name than length.

Some one-word names stretch past eight letters and still feel intuitive because they rely on other qualities:

• rhythm

• familiar language

• a metaphor that clicks quickly

Consider:

• Patagonia

• Häagen-Dazs

• Birkenstock

These names aren’t short, but they feel natural in conversation.

The Real Test of a Name

So here’s the revised piece-of-string advice:

Short names aren’t required.
Long names aren’t inherently risky.

The real question is whether the name earns the space it takes up.

A good name carries its weight. It gives the audience something back for the attention it asks.

And if it does that, length stops mattering very much at all.

Working on a product name?
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This article was originally published on The Nameist Substack.