Naming traditions vary widely from across cultures. From prayers whispered in an infant’s ear, to a taste of honey symbolizing the wish for a sweet life, to prayers at temple for health and happiness.

Being more of a humanist myself, I wasn’t tied to any particular dogma about naming my babies. Of course, we went through lists and lists of names and meanings. We checked Top 10 lists. We got sidetracked at the SSA. But in the end, we defaulted to the good ol’ family trees and plucked some acceptable contenders.

It’s been a while since I named my children. But, I have realized I do hold tight to a particular naming ritual. The ritual of naming a company.

In American Branding Culture, a new name is conferred by mystical experts and only blessed by stakeholder-elders after a ceremonial search of potential social media handles. It is Googled and analyzed not for its place on Top 10 lists, but on its trademarkability and an @ that works on both Twitter and Instagram. Your commitment to this perfect name is tested when you realize some squatter holds the dot-com you seek, and you do some deep soul searching to decide how much you’re willing to fork over to have it.

Yep, I’m deep in that culture.

I remember years ago when we were approached for our first company naming. I said, “Of course.” We were adept at every other aspect of developing a brand platform, why not a name? But inside my head, it sounded like this:

“What the AF, you want ME to name YOUR baby?”

In the years since, we’ve made clients cry a little at the poignancy of the choices we outline. We’ve heard, “I love love love it.” And we’ve had folks look at what we give them and swap the first name with the middle name and then pronounce it just right. It’s all good. Names are the one deliverable where we never limit the product. We might give a client the one perfect choice. Or we might give them eight equally perfect choices if we feel they are all hardy enough to do the job.

Instead of imaging how your name will sound on your son when he’s an old man, we imagine: How does it look on a billboard? Does it sparkle in an elevator speech? Would you ever use it as a verb? (I have thoughts on that, for sure.)

I’ve figured out why someone would trust us to name their corporate baby. It takes both creativity and strategy. Is it delightful and effective? Will it age well? Will my target market respond to it even if I don’t? Sometimes it can take a clinical detachment and lack of emotion to get right. (You know what? When they have a brilliant new idea, entrepreneurs and leaders do not exhibit a lack of detachment or low emotion.)

So, we set about making lists and inventing words and connecting phrases and crossing off the bad ideas and test-driving the good ones. Then finding new words and test-driving some more. We put them through their paces and say goodbye to the ones that are delightful but not very strategic. We say goodbye to great ideas we love but realize are not sustainable. And swear to the sky when some yahoo took the best name ever to name his garage-hobby company and promote it with a 1996 website with crappy flashing graphics.

And then, we find the right answer and hand it carefully to the expectant parents.

There is one tradition we will bring to the table, I suppose. Like a set of godparents sworn to mentor and protect, or a grandmother holding the baby up to the sun, we pledge to nurture and love your little guy. Bonus? We get to skip the stretch marks.