Choose effective names for your company, products and services.

Descriptive names, like Architectural Digest and The Weather Channel, quickly communicate what brands do but can be difficult to trademark if they're generic. It's usually better to reserve descriptive names for common noun (lower-case) category names, not proper noun (capitalized) brand names.

Suggestive names support your brand position by suggesting what you do or how you do it. They may require more education and explanation than descriptive names, but they're more expressive and memorable, too ownable names that set you apart. Examples include Airbnb, Amazon, Tesla and Tide.

Using regular words in an unexpected way, like Adobe and Apple, can seem arbitrary because they don't immediately imply a connection to what you do. And made-up or fanciful names like Kodak, Lexus and Xerox require time and resources to make them meaningful. However, they are very ownable.