Moonlighting as a poet made me a better namer. These are the seven lessons I learned from the lyrical.
If you're a freelancer or "solopreneur" in this industry, you probably have a tidy site showcasing your best work—the copy you've written, the strategies you've developed, or, in my case, the names you can call your names. But when I am asked to share my portfolio site, I don’t. Because that tidy site doesn’t exist. Or rather, it does—but not for branding. And for a good, personal reason.
I moonlight as a poet and essayist, and when I'm not naming the latest software or skincare treatment, I am wading through line and lyric and literary device. I am taking the workshops from other poets and writers, with other poets and writers. I am editing for a small press. I am submitting to prizes and publishing work. This wasn't always the plan–the double life, and the resulting mixed message. Or, maybe it was, is.
After college I started out in New York City, a doe-eyed 22-year-old in publishing with every intention of going back for my MFA. Then poof—it was eight years later and I found myself developing blueprints and creating names for brands on the West Coast. When I made the decision to go back for my MFA for real, it was a difficult one. I had calls with former professors in Golden Gate Park, I weighed the pros and cons with my partner on Baker Beach—the red of the Golden Gate gleaming behind us, I cried on the 5 line as I headed into the office to give my notice. At Character SF (now Dentsu), I had found "my call," touching brands like Grail and Reebok, but then I picked up Heather Christle's The Trees The Trees at Green Apple Books. When I read "The Whole Thing Is the Hard Part," I realized then there was a different, older feeling in me. Another call.
Now, several years later, I can't imagine not having poetry in my life. And, in fact, I believe being a p/t poet makes me a better f/t namer.
1. Poets don’t make words stick—they make them fucking haunt.
The word refrain comes from the Latin refrenare, meaning “to bridle.” In poetry, refrains or, more generally, repetition does just that: it harnesses us readers to an idea, or an idea to us readers. The idea trailing us through a poem, then following us when we take our leave–closing the book’s cover shut. Refrain is ghost-like. Spectre. Sun and sun’s shadow. Think of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots” (“Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers”) currently being surfaced in this new political climate, or, else, the end of Bianca Stone’s “What It’s Like” from Someone Else’s Wedding Vows, a poem that ends with singular word planted, echoed, then undermined: “And there are no clouds in the sky./No airplanes. There isn’t even/a sky. And there isn’t even a sky behind that.”
In naming, the right repetition of words and sounds may not haunt (only poetry can do that), but it can stick. Using my ear to create names similar to Buy Buy Baby (RIP) or Fever-Tree is just one plus of being a poet.
2. Poets go for the gut—literally.
Poets often favor Germanic words over Latinate ones: help vs. assist, ask vs. inquire, belly or gut vs. stomach. This is likely because words stemming from German are shorter (many monosyllabic), tend to come across as more simple, and can feel incredibly visceral—or bodily, making them perfect for meter and (wouldn’t you know it?) emotional effect. Ask any client if they want to connect emotionally with their audience or touch them on a gut level. The answer will always, and ultimately, be: of course.
It should be no surprise that some of the most memorable brand names (at least outside of pharma) have German–not Latin–roots: Tinder, Glint, Goldbelly, Grubhub. And, it also should not come as a surprise that in a world where even B2B brands want to connect on an emotional level, I lean into this poetic instinct. Hard.
3. Poets aren’t afraid of strange.
In Emily Pettit’s poem “In The Inside Outside” from Goat In The Snow, she writes, “…A vocabulary of alarm stuck in my mouth./Like a giraffe inside a giraffe, inside a giraffe,/ inside a lion. An arsenal of weather…” Poets, it seems, know how to describe ambiguous feelings perfectly ambiguously– combining words, concepts, and clauses together in ways that somehow make meaning, even if that meaning feels or is subconscious. And, frankly, some of the best brand names do the same. They don’t overexplain. They suggest. They evoke. They leave room for interpretation. They might appear “left field.” They might sound sideways. Often, they’re off-kilter, but never off-color. From Mailchimp to Red Antler, Lisa Says Gah to Liquid Death, strange—with the right positioning—can be pure magic.
4. Poets speak the language of today.
In Joy of Missing Out, poet Ana Božičević, has a poem called “LOL.” It begins, “Life is lol./ Love is lol./Pain is lol./The wind is lol...” In Stranger, poet Emily Hunt titles a poem “Doritos,” and goes on to list the ingredients of America’s favorite cheesy snack—Red 40 dye included. Peter Gizzi, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, ends “Dissociadelic,” a favorite poem of mine, with, "When you’re gutted,/embrace the whorl. FTW./There’s nothing like it."
The fact is, contemporary poets embrace the language of now—the way people actually talk, text, and truncate, and good namers should do the same–leaning into not shying away from social currency. I think we need more fans of names like OMFGCO and use your words, names that take their cues from today’s linguistic landscape, borrowing not just words but the way words are used.
5. Poets remind us to slip, slip, slip again.
In poetry, slippage can mean many things, but at its core, it’s about movement. A shift in meaning or a revelation of new meaning or even a doubling up of meaning. Take these words from Ben Fama’s poem “Like,” lineated in his first full-length book Fantasy as follows:
I want to be shot by an arrow
into a jacuzzi while the jets are firing
Fama slips from a figurative space–ancient, perhaps even mythic to…well, a jacuzzi.
Talk about a move.
Just as the best lines unfold from the lines above them, the best names come from a similar iteration—one idea slipping into another, and another, and another, until skips become hops, hurdles, vaults: SkinSure, SkinTrue, SkinFine, Skinfinite, Skinfinity, Infinity, InFine, Finery, Refine, Define, Definery, etc. As poet Kenneth Koch once wrote: "In a poem, one line may hide another line,/As at a crossing, one train may hide another train./That is, if you are waiting to cross/The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at/Least after the first train is gone." The same applies to naming. Don’t ever stop at the first train.
6. Forget borrowing. The best poets steal.
Oscar Wilde is often misquoted as saying, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” As a poet and essayist, I don’t just read poetry, memoir, or short stories—I study them. I look for new words, interesting motifs, new-to-me myths, fresh techniques. In naming, I do the same. I study others’ naming to understand constructions, trends. I borrow metaphors from unrelated industries (Naming a tech product? I look to fashion. Naming a skincare line? I look to F&B). Lastly, I always scan the client’s industry itself—competitor websites, similar social feeds, category-specific magazines—for words and phrases that just work.
Poets know that they are part of a conversation stretching back centuries. The fact is, naming, too, is just another verse in the same poem. The wheel doesn’t always need reinvention.
7. Poets spend their whole lives naming the unnameable.
Poets give language to that which resists language. They may complicate and confound, but they also clarify. They work tirelessly to describe and detail impossible-to-conceive topics: loss, grief, familial trauma, mental illness, capitalism, sex, race, relationships, illness, death–even the collective unconscious.
Language will always be haunted by what it cannot say. But poets push at its middle, edges, folds–finding ways to shape the unshapeable. And, I’d like to think namers are doing something similar. In one world, a poet like Frank O’Hara can capture an entire country’s mood in four famous lines: “I have been to lots of parties/and acted perfectly disgraceful/but I never actually collapsed/oh Lana Turner we love you get up.” In another, a namer can capture the essence of a brand with a single word, like Feel.
And, so those long talks in Golden Gate Park and the fateful 5 line ride downtown anticipating going to “poet’s school”? Worth it.
Because the double life, the mixed message—it turns out, it’s not mixed at all.
Stevie Belchak is a freelance namer, strategist, and writer living in Georgia. When she's not "wording out" for work, she's writing out of love—publishing poetry and essays in journals, across the web, and through her Substack.
Moonlighting as a poet made me a better namer. These are the seven lessons I learned from the lyrical.
If you're a freelancer or "solopreneur" in this industry, you probably have a tidy site showcasing your best work—the copy you've written, the strategies you've developed, or, in my case, the names you can call your names. But when I am asked to share my portfolio site, I don’t. Because that tidy site doesn’t exist. Or rather, it does—but not for branding. And for a good, personal reason.
I moonlight as a poet and essayist, and when I'm not naming the latest software or skincare treatment, I am wading through line and lyric and literary device. I am taking the workshops from other poets and writers, with other poets and writers. I am editing for a small press. I am submitting to prizes and publishing work. This wasn't always the plan–the double life, and the resulting mixed message. Or, maybe it was, is.
After college I started out in New York City, a doe-eyed 22-year-old in publishing with every intention of going back for my MFA. Then poof—it was eight years later and I found myself developing blueprints and creating names for brands on the West Coast. When I made the decision to go back for my MFA for real, it was a difficult one. I had calls with former professors in Golden Gate Park, I weighed the pros and cons with my partner on Baker Beach—the red of the Golden Gate gleaming behind us, I cried on the 5 line as I headed into the office to give my notice. At Character SF (now Dentsu), I had found "my call," touching brands like Grail and Reebok, but then I picked up Heather Christle's The Trees The Trees at Green Apple Books. When I read "The Whole Thing Is the Hard Part," I realized then there was a different, older feeling in me. Another call.
Now, several years later, I can't imagine not having poetry in my life. And, in fact, I believe being a p/t poet makes me a better f/t namer.
1. Poets don’t make words stick—they make them fucking haunt.
The word refrain comes from the Latin refrenare, meaning “to bridle.” In poetry, refrains or, more generally, repetition does just that: it harnesses us readers to an idea, or an idea to us readers. The idea trailing us through a poem, then following us when we take our leave–closing the book’s cover shut. Refrain is ghost-like. Spectre. Sun and sun’s shadow. Think of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots” (“Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers”) currently being surfaced in this new political climate, or, else, the end of Bianca Stone’s “What It’s Like” from Someone Else’s Wedding Vows, a poem that ends with singular word planted, echoed, then undermined: “And there are no clouds in the sky./No airplanes. There isn’t even/a sky. And there isn’t even a sky behind that.”
In naming, the right repetition of words and sounds may not haunt (only poetry can do that), but it can stick. Using my ear to create names similar to Buy Buy Baby (RIP) or Fever-Tree is just one plus of being a poet.
2. Poets go for the gut—literally.
Poets often favor Germanic words over Latinate ones: help vs. assist, ask vs. inquire, belly or gut vs. stomach. This is likely because words stemming from German are shorter (many monosyllabic), tend to come across as more simple, and can feel incredibly visceral—or bodily, making them perfect for meter and (wouldn’t you know it?) emotional effect. Ask any client if they want to connect emotionally with their audience or touch them on a gut level. The answer will always, and ultimately, be: of course.
It should be no surprise that some of the most memorable brand names (at least outside of pharma) have German–not Latin–roots: Tinder, Glint, Goldbelly, Grubhub. And, it also should not come as a surprise that in a world where even B2B brands want to connect on an emotional level, I lean into this poetic instinct. Hard.
3. Poets aren’t afraid of strange.
In Emily Pettit’s poem “In The Inside Outside” from Goat In The Snow, she writes, “…A vocabulary of alarm stuck in my mouth./Like a giraffe inside a giraffe, inside a giraffe,/ inside a lion. An arsenal of weather…” Poets, it seems, know how to describe ambiguous feelings perfectly ambiguously– combining words, concepts, and clauses together in ways that somehow make meaning, even if that meaning feels or is subconscious. And, frankly, some of the best brand names do the same. They don’t overexplain. They suggest. They evoke. They leave room for interpretation. They might appear “left field.” They might sound sideways. Often, they’re off-kilter, but never off-color. From Mailchimp to Red Antler, Lisa Says Gah to Liquid Death, strange—with the right positioning—can be pure magic.
4. Poets speak the language of today.
In Joy of Missing Out, poet Ana Božičević, has a poem called “LOL.” It begins, “Life is lol./ Love is lol./Pain is lol./The wind is lol...” In Stranger, poet Emily Hunt titles a poem “Doritos,” and goes on to list the ingredients of America’s favorite cheesy snack—Red 40 dye included. Peter Gizzi, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, ends “Dissociadelic,” a favorite poem of mine, with, "When you’re gutted,/embrace the whorl. FTW./There’s nothing like it."
The fact is, contemporary poets embrace the language of now—the way people actually talk, text, and truncate, and good namers should do the same–leaning into not shying away from social currency. I think we need more fans of names like OMFGCO and use your words, names that take their cues from today’s linguistic landscape, borrowing not just words but the way words are used.
5. Poets remind us to slip, slip, slip again.
In poetry, slippage can mean many things, but at its core, it’s about movement. A shift in meaning or a revelation of new meaning or even a doubling up of meaning. Take these words from Ben Fama’s poem “Like,” lineated in his first full-length book Fantasy as follows:
I want to be shot by an arrow
into a jacuzzi while the jets are firing
Fama slips from a figurative space–ancient, perhaps even mythic to…well, a jacuzzi.
Talk about a move.
Just as the best lines unfold from the lines above them, the best names come from a similar iteration—one idea slipping into another, and another, and another, until skips become hops, hurdles, vaults: SkinSure, SkinTrue, SkinFine, Skinfinite, Skinfinity, Infinity, InFine, Finery, Refine, Define, Definery, etc. As poet Kenneth Koch once wrote: "In a poem, one line may hide another line,/As at a crossing, one train may hide another train./That is, if you are waiting to cross/The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at/Least after the first train is gone." The same applies to naming. Don’t ever stop at the first train.
6. Forget borrowing. The best poets steal.
Oscar Wilde is often misquoted as saying, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” As a poet and essayist, I don’t just read poetry, memoir, or short stories—I study them. I look for new words, interesting motifs, new-to-me myths, fresh techniques. In naming, I do the same. I study others’ naming to understand constructions, trends. I borrow metaphors from unrelated industries (Naming a tech product? I look to fashion. Naming a skincare line? I look to F&B). Lastly, I always scan the client’s industry itself—competitor websites, similar social feeds, category-specific magazines—for words and phrases that just work.
Poets know that they are part of a conversation stretching back centuries. The fact is, naming, too, is just another verse in the same poem. The wheel doesn’t always need reinvention.
7. Poets spend their whole lives naming the unnameable.
Poets give language to that which resists language. They may complicate and confound, but they also clarify. They work tirelessly to describe and detail impossible-to-conceive topics: loss, grief, familial trauma, mental illness, capitalism, sex, race, relationships, illness, death–even the collective unconscious.
Language will always be haunted by what it cannot say. But poets push at its middle, edges, folds–finding ways to shape the unshapeable. And, I’d like to think namers are doing something similar. In one world, a poet like Frank O’Hara can capture an entire country’s mood in four famous lines: “I have been to lots of parties/and acted perfectly disgraceful/but I never actually collapsed/oh Lana Turner we love you get up.” In another, a namer can capture the essence of a brand with a single word, like Feel.
And, so those long talks in Golden Gate Park and the fateful 5 line ride downtown anticipating going to “poet’s school”? Worth it.
Because the double life, the mixed message—it turns out, it’s not mixed at all.
Stevie Belchak is a freelance namer, strategist, and writer living in Georgia. When she's not "wording out" for work, she's writing out of love—publishing poetry and essays in journals, across the web, and through her Substack.
Further Reading
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