Semantics

In practice

Semantic checking catches the obvious failures: the word that means something unfortunate somewhere. It does not catch tone, register or association, which is why it is the first screen rather than the only one. Take the English word mist, which is German for dung. No amount of English taste would flag it; only a semantic check in German does. For a naming decision, run it in every language of every target market before a name reaches the shortlist.

Where this sits in the process

The studio treats this as part of a single run rather than a separate service: the category is read, the creative direction is chosen from what the research found, candidates are generated in volume and then cut against criteria that were written down first. See how the studio works for what that produces, or the naming module for the stages themselves.

Related concepts

• Connotation: The associations a name carries beyond its dictionary meaning, and why connotation usually decides the choice.
• Linguistic screening: How candidate names are tested across languages for unintended meanings: and why it happens before the decision, not after.
• False friend: The words that look familiar across languages and are not.