Evocative names
Evocative names require a little thought or research from your audiences to understand what they mean. Most folks won’t get them instantly, but once they know what your offering is, or look up the word in a dictionary or encyclopedia, the name’s message will be clear.
If you’ve ever read poetry, you’ve engaged with language in the same way that evocative names do. They sit next to a meaning, rather than sitting right on top of it, which allows them to sit next to several different meanings at once. And once audiences start to make those connections, they feel clever and rewarded, like they’re part of telling the story themselves.
This can be tough to do, because it requires deep knowledge of both your audience and offering, and a bit of luck that the right word, symbol, or building blocks already exist. But when you pull it off, evocative names can be some of the most satisfying to work with, and most enduring in-market.
Famous examples
If you’ve read any of our name message deep-dives, you may have encountered a few names that had you scratching your head, but made total sense once we explained them. When you see Stripe, you’ll know that’s a reference to credit cards, even if you didn’t before.
While intuitive names generally rely on real words and their dictionary definitions to get their ideas across, evocative names have a much wider toolkit to make use of. While there is still a place for dictionary words, they tend to be much rarer: Peloton is the word for a cluster of cyclists packed together for aerodynamics in a big race, and while cycling nerds might know that (and be impressed that the brand does), most audiences will have to (and be able to) look that up.
A more common approach to real words is to rely on their associations rather than their definitions. Venus is associated with beauty and femininity, letting the razor maker convey both in a single word, if a little less clearly. Same idea with Tesla and concepts like invention, electricity, and superiority. Android evokes humanistic computers,
But to evoke an idea, you don’t necessarily have to use a word that already exists. Many evocative names combine parts of words in ways that are still (eventually) recognizable. Microsoft is still recognizably derived from Microscopic and Software, evoking lightweight computer programs. Pantone literally means all colors, if you speak Latin, which most of its audiences don’t. Febreeze evokes breezy fabrics, UNIQLO evokes a one-stop shop for unique clothing, and Tampax clearly means tampon packs, at least once you know that’s what it means.
There’s a line here, but it’s not clear: nobody has any idea what Spotify is intended to convey, least of all its creators. But what about Clorox, or Immodium? The upper limit of evocative is very much based on gut feeling (or, if at all possible, audience validation surveys).
Why you might [not] use it
Evocative names are most useful when clarity, flexibility, and ownability are all equally important.
If you have a general idea of where you’re going, but not a hyper-specific one, and you want your audiences to know just that, it’s the right choice. If you need audiences to know exactly what’s going on, an intuitive approach might be better (and you might need to prioritize your messages). If you want to have some ability to shape a name, but don’t want to be starting from scratch, evocative is the right goal to set.
But if you want to maximize one of those variables, another approach might be better. No metaphor for flavor will ever be as clear as Yum, and any name grounded in real associations will necessarily be less flexible than Xerox or AstraZeneca.
Testing your names
It’s relatively easy to test an evocative name, and arguably much more important for evocative names than for the other naming methods. It’s common to find a term that feels evocative, but either has a much narrower interpretation for your audiences, or is a reference they don’t understand at all.
The core approach here is to show your audience a name and a succinct definition of what it offers. “Here’s an ad for something called Rectify. What do you think they it is? …Interesting, thanks. Now, how we describe Rectify as ‘a hemorrhoid cream that provides relief of swelling, pain, and itching.’ Given that, why do you think we selected Rectify?”
If their first answer is right on the mark, you might actually be looking at an intuitive name — if it’s right on all the marks, you’ve hit a real gold-mine, since few words can intuitively convey many messages at once.
If their second answer is right on the mark, then you’re definitely within the bounds of evocative. But if, even knowing what the offering is, the audience still can’t figure out why it would be named that, then you’re likely looking at a cryptic name.
Up next:
Want to better understand the other methods names use to convey their messages? Read on about cryptic names.
Want to know more about the messages themselves? Start with the originals: origin names.
Or, for a general overview of naming topics, head over to our naming crash course.
Have ideas? Have questions?