Happy New Year everyone!
As mentioned in 2006 we have rebranded Stoked Brands as Thingnamer due to the change in focus for the blog. We’ll be holding off on a new look until Stokefire (the company that owns the site and promotes the blog) has gone through their own rebranding and is ready to launch their own rebranded stuff.
Ever since we selected the name Thingnamer we’ve gotten quite a few questions about it. Here’s a quick response to the various questions we’ve gotten:
- Did you (Tate Linden or Stokefire) create the Thingnamer name? Nope. We didn’t. We spent a whole lot of time a couple years back explaining what it was that we did – and then received a challenge to say what we did in three words. I came up with a few options, including “We Develop Identities” and “We Name Stuff.” On a trip to Switzerland I mentioned this to the founder of Santana Tandems, (Bill McCready) and his response – written in the facebook for the trip – was to say that my occupation was “Thingnamer.”
- But don’t you do more than name things? Yes. The title doesn’t exactly cover everything that I do, but it certainly covers a good portion of it. Compare my title to that of “salesperson” or “programmer”… there’s a whole lot of stuff that people do in those positions that have very little to do with programming or selling – and yet we let ‘em go on with their day anyhow.
- So why did you decide to steal the name from Bill? I’ll ask a question back here. Which is more catchy – “We Name Stuff” or “I’m a Thingnamer?”
- So… you name stuff for a living… but you couldn’t come up with your own title (and blog)? In a word, “Yes.” In a few more words, I believe firmly that in many cases “The eye cannot see itself.” We have developed hundreds of names – including Stokefire – but once you live with (or within) an identity or concept for long enough you cease to be able to see it with fresh eyes. Bill had never heard of my line of work and his instinctual simplification was far better than my own labored efforts. (This is one reason why we will bring in non-experts to assist with naming when we’re deeply involved in a project.)
- What convinced you that Thingnamer was the right name? There were approximately 50 people on the Switzerland tour and every single one of them was intrigued enough by Thingnamer to approach me and ask me about it. It wasn’t that they didn’t understand the concept – it was that they thought it was the coolest thing they had ever heard. And there’s more, too. I went back and started looking for other ways to say the same thing (but to address the full weight of my job) and I failed. Anything else I tried was awkward or inappropriate. Thingnamer trumps Identitygiver, Brandmaker, Namegiver, and just about any other munge you might think of. It is fun to say, has a fun Superhero aspect to it (as though anyone would actually want to be born with that super-power) and upon hearing it the first response isn’t “boy that guy is certainly full of himself” (which was exactly the response each of the other names got.)
- Will Stokefire remain the same, or is that changing too? Stokefire Consulting Group has no plans to change their name at this time.
- What will happen to Stoked Brands? It will fade away. Search engines will probably still drive traffic due to that name, and I’m sure at some point someone else will try to get the domain (we never owned stokedbrands.com.) If someone wants to run with that identity they can do so without upsetting the Thingnamers here. I do love the concept of poking brands with sticks – and will likely bring that aspect inside Stokefire for marketing – but I never really connected with the identity of Stoked Brands. The alternate meaning of Stoked (usually used in the same sentence as “dude”) doesn’t reflect my own attitude or language – and it didn’t really reflect that of Stokefire either.
- Don’t you tell people not to use “.com” for their company names? Yes. The “.com” after Thingnamer on this site is a name-geek joke. It is probably funny to a total of four people in the world – and one of them is me – so it stays for now. It seems like every company named from 1999 to 2001 slapped “.com” on the end of their name to show how cool, high-tech, and trendy they were. These same companies almost universally dropped their suffix after the “dotcom bubble” burst. If I was being more obvious I would’ve named it Thingnamr Beta. More people would probably appreciate the humor…
That’s all the questions I’ve gotten so far. If you have more of ‘em just leave a comment with the question. Or you can sling mud at the new name. Or tell me how right I am. Or comment on my shiny scalp. It’s a new year… everything is possible.
Tate Linden
Principal Thingnamer
Stokefire Consulting Group
703-778-9925
