Is this name right for the brief?

Seventy-four candidate names for a new spray-tanning service, one question each. You work alone: your ratings stay in this browser and are never shown to another reviewer. The consensus step happens offline, once every export is in. Expect 45 to 60 minutes; more than one sitting is fine, your work saves as you go.

Who is reviewing?

Your first name

Your first name keys your ratings to this browser and appears on your export. Guests invited by Delaney follow exactly the same rules, including the no-discussion rule.

Read the Brief and the Protocol first, then scan the field and rate family by family. Do not discuss candidates with anyone else reviewing until all exports are in.

The brief

What we are naming, and for whom.

Read this once, fully, before opening the candidate list. Every rating you give should trace back to something on this page.

Card 1

What is being named

A new spray-tanning service founded by Lil and Delaney. It will likely launch as a mobile or small home-based operation, with the aspiration of one or more storefronts over time.

Because the launch mode is undecided, the name must not lock in a delivery mode. No “mobile,” no “on-the-go,” no “studio-only” implications. The test is double: does it work as a social handle today, and would it be credible painted on a storefront window in five years?

Card 2

The audience that matters most

The working hypothesis: university students and their close friends. People like Delaney, reached through her own social world.

Discovery likely runs through Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat handles and word of mouth more than web search. That means the name has to say well out loud at a party (“just look up ___”), spell itself after one hearing, and look right in an @handle. This audience hypothesis is exactly that, a hypothesis; rate against it as written.

Card 3

The register we are aiming for

Youthful, peer-to-peer, confident, socially shareable. Not clinical, not luxury-spa formal.

The name should sound like it belongs in a group chat, not on a medical brochure or a resort menu. Playful is welcome; jokey-to-the-point-of-cheap is not, because the same name has to survive the storefront ambition. Tones to avoid: tanning-bed salon vocabulary, anything that would embarrass a client telling her friends where she goes.

Card 4

Where the name has to travel

The business will operate in the Phoenix, Arizona metro or the Provo, Utah metro, possibly both. Which one is not yet decided.

Because the geography is unresolved, and because the brand is meant to outlast school and relocation, metro-portable names are the default. A few candidates deliberately anchor to a region or campus; they are labeled, and the label is the tradeoff. Rate them honestly, but know that a geography-locked name carries a documented cost this brief has already flagged.

Card 5

The domain and handle posture

We are flexible on domains. A .com exact match is preferable, not required. Social handles matter at least as much for this audience.

A strong name whose exact .com is taken can still win: modified domains, book- or get- prefixes, and alternate endings are all acceptable if findability holds. Do not kill a name in your head because you suspect the domain or handle is taken. Availability gets screened properly after the shortlist forms.

Card 6

What happens after this review

Your independent ratings are combined into a consensus shortlist. Shortlisted names then get tested for usability, meaning, domain and handle viability, trademark screening, and growth runway.

Nothing is decided by this review alone. One candidate, Master the Mist, existed before this project as the name of a drafted education podcast for this venture. It is evaluated here as one candidate among many, on equal footing. Either outcome is a good outcome; the goal is a name chosen on evidence rather than momentum. Legal screening is done by qualified professionals, not by us. The final adoption decision comes later, with full evidence in front of it.

The protocol

How this review works.

Reviewers work alone, then a consensus sort. The rules below protect the quality of the result.

Rule 1

Review alone

Do not discuss candidates with the other reviewers until everyone has submitted. Independent reads come first; the group conversation comes after.

Group discussion before independent review lets the most confident voice in the room set everyone’s anchor. The whole value of multiple reviewers is multiple uncorrelated reads. Your ratings stay on your own device until you export and send them; nobody sees your entries through this site.

Rule 2

The question is fit, not affection

For every name, the question is: is this name right for the brief? It is never: do I like it?

You will like names that are wrong for this business and feel lukewarm about names that are right for it. Rate against the brief page: the student-peer audience, the youthful-but-storefront-worthy register, the two-metro portability, the handle-first discovery. If you find yourself writing “I just like it” or “I just don’t,” go back to the brief and find the actual reason.

Rule 3

The verdicts

Each name gets one of three verdicts: Right for the brief. Could be right. Not right for the brief.

“Right for the brief” should be rare; spend it on names you would defend in the consensus conversation. “Could be right” is a real verdict, not a dodge: use it when a name has a strength worth discussing and a weakness worth testing. “Not right” needs a reason, even a short one.

Rule 4

Rationale is required for names you advance

Any name you mark “Right for the brief” or “Could be right” needs at least one sentence of rationale tied to the brief.

The consensus sort works on overlapping rationale, not just overlapping votes. “Easy to say out loud when a friend asks where you got your tan” is useful. “Love it” is not. For “Not right” verdicts a reason is welcome but a short tag is enough: wrong tone, too regional, too cute, confusing, weak.

Rule 5

Do not screen domains, handles, or trademarks yourself

Rate the name, not its availability. Domain, social-handle, and trademark screening happens after the shortlist, with proper tools and proper counsel.

If you happen to know of a conflict, note it in the rationale box and keep rating on the merits. A name killed early on a rumor of unavailability is the most common way good names die.

Rule 6

When you finish

Use the export button to copy your completed review, then send it to Eric. Your entries are saved on your own device as you go, so you can review in more than one sitting.

The export is a plain text block: your name, the date, your verdict and rationale per candidate. Once all reviews are in, the consensus sort is prepared and the group conversation is scheduled. Expect roughly 45 to 60 minutes to review the full field with care; two sittings is fine. Guest reviewers invited by Delaney follow exactly the same rules, including the no-discussion rule.

The field: 74 candidates.

Families are strategies, not rankings. Rate every name; the strongest fields usually surprise their makers.

Scan the whole field before you rate anything. The one-line strategy under each family is all the framing there is; the rest is your read against the brief. Tap a family to start there, or begin at the top.