Cutting a 40-name fintech shortlist to 8

A Series B payments company needed to rebrand ahead of a European expansion. Their internal team had generated 40 candidates. We scored every name, identified the 8 that cleared the phonetic and semantic bar, and flagged two that had trademark risk in target markets.

40

Names reviewed

8

Cleared full filter

74

Final score (chosen name)

4 days

Engagement duration

The challenge

The client had 40 name candidates generated by three different teams — brand, marketing, and an external agency. All 40 had internal champions. They needed an objective framework to narrow the list without internal politics derailing the process.

Our approach

We ran every candidate through PhonoPair's full three-pillar analysis, filtered for names scoring above 60, then applied manual checks for: category connotations, competitor proximity, and preliminary trademark search across EU and UK registers.

The outcome

8 names cleared the full filter. Of those, 2 were eliminated in trademark review. The remaining 6 went to client review. The chosen name scored 74 on the analyzer — in the "Strong" tier — and cleared both the EU trademark register and .com domain check.

“The scoring framework meant we spent time debating strategy, not aesthetics. We got to a decision in four days that would normally take four weeks.”

— Head of Brand, Series B fintech company

Working on a naming project?

Start a conversation

Back to case studies