A skill that makes Claude name a brand, product or range the way a senior namer does, one stage at a time, with you choosing at each fork. It turns your notes into a naming brief with the name's job in one sentence. It maps what your competitors' names have in common, picks a mix of name types and builds three or four territories with seed words. Then it writes about 80 tagged names, knocks out the weak ones, scores the rest out of 80 on eight weighted criteria and writes a card for each name on a shortlist of five to eight. Finally it shows the finalists in use and records the decision.
Inside are four reference files: name types and twelve ways to build a name, the scorecard and people tests, the checks you run yourself, and a fully worked example for a fictional cleaning-tablet brand. The checks file holds US trademark basics, USPTO search syntax with worked strings, filing fees and timing, the order to check domains, social handle limits and language checks, each with its source and the date it was checked, 17 October 2026. Claude never says a name is available or clear. It never invents search results, prices or meanings in other languages, and never builds a name on another brand or a real person's name.
Claude cannot see the trademark register, a registrar's stock or anyone's handles, so you run the checks and paste the results back. It sorts them into red, yellow and noted, and tells you which to take to an attorney. The trademark material is written for the US; for other countries it points you to WIPO, TMview and a local lawyer. With code execution switched on it generates compounds and blends, counts letters exactly, totals the scores, and gives you the long list as a spreadsheet and the finalists as a PDF name board. Bring a competitor list and the countries you will sell in within three years, and budget for an attorney's full search on your top one or two names.
Claude skill · version 1.0
Brand naming
Checking your access.
In the download · 8 files
- SKILL.mdThe method Claude follows: brief, territories, long list, shortlist, checks and decision, one stage at a time.
- README.mdHow to install it in claude.ai or Claude Code, how to start, and the licence.
- references/name-types-and-methods.mdThe name types and how each fares as a US trademark, territories, twelve ways to build a name, sound and shape rules, and category patterns to avoid.
- references/checks-to-run.mdUS trademark basics, USPTO search syntax with worked strings, wider searches, fees and timing, domains, handle limits and language checks, checked 17 October 2026.
- references/scoring-and-shortlist.mdSix knockouts, the weighted scorecard out of 80, thresholds, five people tests, the shortlist card and the decision record.
- references/worked-example.mdAll six stages for a fictional cleaning-tablet brand, ending in a decision record with the checks still owed.
Install it and begin
01Install it in Claude CodeTerminal mkdir -p ~/.claude/skillsunzip ~/Downloads/brand-naming.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/# Start it with /brand-naming. If this is your first skill, type /reload-skills once.On claude.ai there is nothing to unzip: upload the zip as it is. Every step is on Install and use a Claude skill.
02Your first message to ClaudeText Use the brand naming skill. We are naming [WHAT YOU ARE NAMING, E.G. A SKINCARE LINE] for [WHO BUYS IT]. We sell in [COUNTRIES NOW AND WITHIN THREE YEARS] and our buyers read [LANGUAGES]. It sits [ON ITS OWN OR UNDER WHICH BRAND]. Our competitors are [FIVE TO TEN NAMES]. Start with the naming brief and tell me what is missing.Attach a pitch deck, a client brief or a page of notes, plus any names you already like or hate. A list of competitors helps Claude see what your category already sounds like.
Side by side
Name types side by side
| As a US trademark | What it costs you | Use it when | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | Weak. Often refused as merely descriptive; it may register later with proof it has become distinctive, such as five years of exclusive use. | It sounds like the category and is hard to stretch to the next product. | A product sits under a strong master brand, or a local service is found mostly through search. |
| Evocative | Strong when it lands as suggestive or arbitrary. A name that only hints needs a step of thought from the buyer. | Real words are crowded across classes, so the searches find more. | A new company in a crowded category wants a feeling it can own. |
| Invented | Strongest on the spectrum. A fanciful word means nothing outside the brand. | It means nothing on day one, so you pay in time and money to teach it. | You want room to grow and have the budget to build meaning. |
| Compound | Judged as a whole. Two descriptive halves stay descriptive; one distinctive half makes it stronger. | Long joins get misspelt, so read the seam aloud. | You want two ideas in one name and the single words are taken. |
| Founder or surname | Refused if it is mainly a surname. A living person's name needs their written consent. | Equity questions follow if that person leaves. | A studio or craft practice sells the person behind it. |
| Place | Refused if buyers would think the goods come from that place. | It ties the brand to one origin. | The place carries the character and the goods are not made there. |
General readings of the USPTO spectrum, checked 17 October 2026. This is not legal advice. A trademark attorney decides for your name and your goods.
What to do it with
- ClaudeFree tier, paid above it
A language model that writes, edits, reads long documents and runs tools, including agents that work inside a codebase.
Bad at It is agreeable by default, so it will improve a bad idea instead of telling you it is bad. Ask it to argue against you and the quality of the answer changes.
- Claude CodeSubscription
An agent that reads a whole repository, edits files, runs the tests and explains what it changed.
Bad at It is fast enough to make a large mistake quickly. Work on a branch, read the diff, and never let it push. Watch the starting mode: on Pro, Max and Team plans it opens in auto mode, which Anthropic's own list says may read a .env file and send the key in it to the API that key belongs to. Switch it off.
- TMviewFree
Searches trademark registers across many countries at once, free.
Bad at It finds registrations, not unregistered rights, and reading the results properly is a lawyer's job.
- NamecheapPay per use
Checks and registers domains, which is the first real filter on any name.
Bad at Searching a name in a registrar is not a trademark search, and people confuse the two constantly.
Why it matters
Ask a chat for brand names and you get forty words ending in -ly, with no way to tell which ones you could own. Some are descriptive, some sound like a rival, and some get called available when nobody has checked. This skill makes Claude write a brief first, go wide across real territories, cut hard with knockouts and a weighted score, and hand you the exact searches to run, so the name you fall for has already survived the checks.
- Type
- technique
- Period
- ongoing