Quick test. What’s the name of the laptop you’re using, the car you drive, or the phone in your pocket? I don’t mean the brand. I mean the full name.
If you own a Samsung phone, it might be a “Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.” That’s four distinct pieces of information: the company, a sub-brand, a model line, and a tier. Four things to remember, say, and get right. Compare that to the person sitting next to you who just says: “my iPhone.”
That gap is what I want to talk about today. Because most naming problems aren’t about picking a bad word. They’re about picking too many good ones.
Three Kinds of Names
Every product name is really doing one of three jobs. Once you can tell them apart, the whole mess gets easier to untangle.
Names with character. These are the evocative, invented, emotional names. They don’t describe anything — they are something. “Kindle.” “Roomba.” “Venmo.” A name with character has personality. It asks to be remembered.
Descriptors. These are plain-language labels that tell you what the thing is or does. “Wireless Earbuds.” “Cloud Storage.” “All-Purpose Cleaner.” Descriptors are functional. They aren’t trying to charm you; they’re trying to inform you.
Model identifiers. These are the codes, numbers, and version markers that distinguish one variant from another. “Pro.” “Max.” “V2.” “S24.” Model identifiers exist to help you tell near-identical things apart.
Each of these has a legitimate job. The trouble starts when you forget which is which — and start stacking names with character on top of names with character on top of names with character.
The Character Overload Problem
Here’s the core issue. A name with character demands attention and memory. That’s the whole point of it. So when you put a distinctive, evocative name at every level of your hierarchy, you’re asking your customer to memorize a small vocabulary just to talk about your product.
Look at how the car industry does this. Toyota — a name with character — makes the Highlander (another name with character) which comes in a trim called the Platinum (yet another). Three memorable words, none of which reinforces the others. Now go shopping across the category and you’re juggling the Highlander, the Pathfinder, the Telluride, the Ascent, the Palisade. They’re all pleasant names. That’s exactly the problem. There’s nothing to hold on to because everything is trying to be memorable at once.
Software does it too. A company launches a product with an invented name, then names each pricing tier with its own invented name, then gives the individual features invented names on top of that. By the time a customer wants to tell a colleague which plan solved their problem, they can’t. They just gesture vaguely at “that one tool.”
When everything is special, nothing is.
What “Clean” Actually Looks Like
Now look at Apple, which pulls off one of the disciplined naming structures in consumer tech.
The company name has character: Apple. Then the product line gets one name with character: iPhone, iPad, MacBook. And then — critically — everything below that switches to plain descriptors and simple model identifiers. “MacBook Pro.” “iPhone 16.” “iPad Mini.”
Notice what’s happening. You get exactly one memorable word to hold in your head, and then the rest of the name works for you. “Pro” tells you it’s the serious one.”16” tells you where the model sits in a series. “Mini” tells you it’s small. You don’t have to memorize these. You can practically guess them. The descriptors and model identifiers do the heavy lifting so the name with character doesn’t have to.
Google learned the same lesson. Its hardware is the Pixel (character), followed by a number and a plain modifier: “Pixel 9,” “Pixel 9 Pro.” One word to remember, then math and adjectives.
The pattern is consistent across the brands that get this right: character at the top, clarity below. One name earns your memory. Everything else earns its keep by being obvious.
Why This Matters More for You Than for Them
You might be thinking: Samsung and Toyota are doing fine with their overstuffed names. True. But those companies have billion-dollar marketing budgets to drill four-word product names into your head through sheer repetition.
You don’t. For a small or medium-size business, every unnecessary word your customer has to remember is a small tax on your word-of-mouth. If a happy customer can’t confidently name the exact thing they bought when they recommend you, that recommendation gets weaker. “You should try their premium plan — I think it’s called… something.” That’s a sale leaking out through a naming gap.
Simple structures aren’t just tidier. They’re cheaper to market and easier to spread.
A Quick Naming Audit
Before you launch or reorganize your product line, run through this:
- List every name in your hierarchy, top to bottom — company, product line, sub-product, tier, feature.
- Label each one: character, descriptor, or model identifier.
- Count your character names. If you have more than one or two in a single product’s full name, you’re overloading your customer’s memory.
- Demote where you can. Ask of each character name below the top level: could this be a plain descriptor or a simple model identifier instead? “Could ‘Titanium Elite’ just be ‘Pro’?”
- Say the full name out loud, then ask a friend to repeat it back a day later. If they can’t, your structure is too heavy.
- Protect the top. Put your creative energy into one strong name with character — the one your brand is built on — and let everything beneath it be clear rather than clever.
The goal isn’t a boring name. It’s one memorable name, held up by a structure that explains itself. Give your customers one thing to remember, and make everything else easy to figure out. That’s how a name gets repeated — and a name that gets repeated is a name that works.