Brand naming resources abound on the internet.

Here are two I’ve used with some success even though they aren’t exclusively created for naming companies or products.

The first is an authority site concerned with the creative process. It’s called GoCreate.Com. It provides links to creative systems, software, techniques, and other resources promoting and aiding creative thought and action. Two resources you’ll find listed on the home page are specifically helpful directories of resources:

* Creativity Toolbox at http://gocreate.com/tools/
* Head Shed at http://gocreate.com/headshed/tools.htm

In the Creativity Toolbox you’ll find several relevant naming resources, including Brainline where you can ask others to help you  in an on-line branstorming session, Naming Prompts which stimulates lateral thinking through slightly off-beat questioning, and the Rhyme Zone where you enter a word and ask for rhyming words or synonyms or more sophisticated searches like matching consonants only.

Head Shed contains most of the same resources as Creativity Toolbox, but you may find some different nougats there of interest for your particular naming project, or for other creative explorations.

The second resource is word-oriented. It’s called Lexical FreeNet. It proclaims to be a “connected thesaurus”. You type in a couple of words and select whether you want the online program to generate relationships, connections, intersections, etc. The most meaningful I’ve found is asking for a “Substring” which “finds words that contain the first as a substring”—i.e., variations on the theme. There’s a lot of power in the programeven though most is not applicable to naming. However, if you’re fascinated by words and their relationships, you’ll find this site satisfying.

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1. Naming Tips: Number 10 in a Series
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3. Naming Tips: Number 43 in a Series
4. Naming Tip: Number 47 in a Series
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