Why Suggestive Brand Names Are the Best for Your Business

TL;DR: When choosing a brand name, you must balance legal protection with marketing power. While completely made-up words (arbitrary/coined) offer the strongest legal trademark protection, they require huge advertising budgets to explain. Descriptive names are easy to market but incredibly hard to protect legally. Suggestive brand names are the perfect sweet spot: they creatively hint at your product or service without bluntly describing it, making them highly marketable and highly protectable.

Choosing a brand name is one of the most critical components in launching a new product, service, or company. If you pick the wrong name, you might find yourself unable to legally protect it—or worse, spending millions of dollars trying to explain to consumers what your company actually does.

When trademark attorneys look at a brand name, they place it on a "Spectrum of Distinctiveness." Here is a breakdown of the three most common categories business owners consider, and why I advise clients to aim for the middle ground.

1. Descriptive Names (Easy to Market, Hard to Protect)

Descriptive names tell the consumer exactly what is being sold.

  • The Pros: Consumers instantly know what you do.

  • The Cons: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) generally refuses to give monopolies on descriptive words, making these incredibly difficult to register as trademarks.

  • Examples: The Weather Channel, Hotels.com, Cartoon Network.

2. Arbitrary or Coined Names (Hard to Market, Easy to Protect)

These are either completely made-up words or real words that have absolutely zero connection to the product or service being sold.

  • The Pros: These are the absolute strongest trademarks legally. The USPTO loves them.

  • The Cons: Unless you have a gigantic advertising budget to "connect the dots" for consumers, no one will know what your business does just by hearing the name.

  • Examples: Exxon, Starbucks, Yahoo!, Pandora, Kayak (for travel).

3. Suggestive Names (The Sweet Spot)

Suggestive names sit perfectly between descriptive and arbitrary. They tell the consumer something about the product or service, but they do it in a creative, clever way that requires a little bit of imagination.

  • The Pros: Because they require a leap of imagination, the USPTO considers them inherently distinctive and highly protectable. Because they creatively hint at the product, marketing is incredibly natural.

  • The Cons: They can be challenging to brainstorm!

Examples of Brilliant Suggestive Brand Names

To see exactly how suggestive names successfully hint at a product without explicitly stating it, look at some of these famous and highly creative examples across different industries:

Industry Suggestive Brand Name Why It Works
Technology / Web Pinterest Blends "pin" and "interest" for a digital vision board.
Technology / Web Netflix Combines "Flicks" (movies) on the "Net" (internet).
Technology / Web Groupon Blends "group" and "coupon."
Restaurants Thai The Knot A brilliant, memorable pun on a common phrase.
Restaurants Lox Stock & Bagel A clever twist on "lock, stock, and barrel."
Coffee Shops Brewed Awakening Hints at both coffee (brew) and the morning jolt (awakening).
Retail Perfumania Combines the product (perfume) with excitement (mania).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Suggestive Brand Names

What is the "Spectrum of Distinctiveness" in trademark law?

The Spectrum of Distinctiveness is a legal framework the USPTO uses to determine how strong a trademark is. It ranks names from weakest to strongest: Generic (cannot be protected), Descriptive (very hard to protect), Suggestive (strong), Arbitrary (stronger), and Fanciful/Coined (strongest).

How do I know if my name is suggestive or just descriptive?

The line between suggestive and descriptive can be blurry. A good rule of thumb is the "imagination test." If a consumer has to pause and use a little bit of thought or imagination to figure out what you sell, the name is likely suggestive. If the name immediately tells them what the product is without any thought, it is descriptive.

Why shouldn't I just use a made-up word for my business name?

Made-up words (like Kodak or Exxon) are fantastic for legal protection, but terrible for bootstrapping a new business. If you name your new local plumbing company "Zorblax," you will have to spend a massive amount of marketing money just to teach your community that "Zorblax" means plumbing. A suggestive name does that marketing work for you.

Can I register the trademark for a suggestive name myself, or do I need an attorney?

While you can file a trademark application yourself, categorizing a name correctly on the distinctiveness spectrum can be highly subjective. A trademark attorney can conduct a thorough clearance search and give you a realistic assessment of whether the USPTO will view your name as legally suggestive or reject it for being too descriptive.