Brent Carlson-Lee

To quote Mark Prus, Principal at NameFlash, Frankenames are “names created by slamming two or more word parts together to make a new name. This would include a name like “Toasterrific” (toaster + terrific).” See full article here.

Despite his warning, the proliferation of Frankenames continues.

In fact, I am an owner of a Frankename trademark, Pretzel’tizers. While I don’t love the name, consumers quickly and easily understood the meaning. It’s an appetizer made out of pretzels. I also tested Pretzioli (Pretzel Ravioli) which was quickly understood by only about 50% of the consumers. The other 50% didn’t grasp the meaning and didn’t put in any effort to do so. And to quote Mark again “no matter how clever you think you are being, consumers really don’t care and won’t work to get the meaning.”

Here are some particularly bad Frankenames I have encountered recently.

If you need to define your name in parentheses, it’s probably not a good name.

I didn’t know frying pans could be organic.

Why?