Jun 11, 2018
Laurel Sutton is a co-founder of Catchword, a Bay Area naming firm behind names like Asana, Vudu, and many of the activity trackers from Fitbit, like Zip, One, Flex, and Force. She is also the Information Officer for the American Name Society; but Laurel's not only a naming expert. She's also a trained linguist, with a Master's Degree in linguistics from UC Berkeley.
Laurel's expertise in naming and linguistics make her perfectly suited for her current role: She now runs Sutton Strategy, where she focuses on providing linguistic analysis on name ideas. Linguistic analysis is a crucial step in the naming process, ensuring you (or your client) don't end up with a name on one of those listicles of "worst naming disasters" because you failed to realize your brand name was slang for something offensive. For some reason, the most famous example of a linguistic disaster in naming is actually fake news: the story of Chevy Nova selling poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because it translates to "doesn't go." Never happened. But there are real examples, too, like Zyklon, Incubus, LaCrosse, and Strange Fruit.
Laurel kicked off our conversation by defining linguistic analysis as "pieces of research that are designed to make sure that any name is going to work globally." She then shared her process, what it means to do a "global" check, whether it's still important to do linguistic checks when your brand will only sell in the US (it is), and the difference between translation and transliteration.