Build a Naming Shortlist for a New Fintech Feature

Marketing Academy · Field Work●Brand Strategy

MiniBuild the Asset· 25 minutes

Robinhood

Objective: Generate and filter a real naming shortlist for a new product feature using the lesson's four generation methods and four-filter test.

Robinhood is launching a new fractional-share gifting feature and needs a standalone feature name, not just "Gifting," that can survive trademark scrutiny and scale internationally.

Generate 12+ candidates across all four generation methods, then run each through the spell/say/search/scale filter and submit a ranked shortlist of 3.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Docs

FreeDraft and organize the candidate pool by generation method

Free, shareable, no account friction for a brainstorming document

The process

1 step

Step 01 of 01

Generating a large candidate pool across four methods

The lesson's Step 2 gives four generation methods: thematic brainstorm, root word exploration, unexpected adjacency, and portmanteau construction, so no single method biases the pool.

Using all four methods, can you generate at least 3 candidates per method (12+ total) for a fractional-share gifting feature before filtering anything out?

Google Docs— A shared Google Doc with four labeled columns, one per generation method.

Procedure

Thematic brainstorm: list 10 words tied to 'giving' and 'ownership', then combine or distort 3 of them
Root word exploration: pull 3 candidates from Latin/Greek roots for 'share' or 'gift' (e.g. dona-, part-)
Unexpected adjacency: pick an unrelated category (gardening, astronomy) and pull 3 candidate words from it
Portmanteau construction: merge two meaningful words (e.g. 'share' + 'kindle') into 3 candidates

Sample output

THEMATIC: Giftly, Sharecircle, Ownshare
ROOT WORD: Donari, Partis, Kleros
ADJACENCY: Sprout, Bloomshare, Orbit
PORTMANTEAU: Sharedle, Giftfolio, Sprinkle

Healthy

12+ candidates spread evenly across all four methods before any filtering begins.

Unhealthy

8 of 12 candidates are minor variations of the same thematic word because brainstorming stopped after one method felt productive.

What this means

A pool skewed toward one generation method produces a shortlist that only reflects one creative lens, not the full range of naming strategies from the lesson.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
Every candidate sounds like a variation of 'share' or 'gift'	Force at least 3 candidates from the adjacency and portmanteau methods before filtering	5 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Final deliverable

A ranked shortlist of 3 final name candidates, each annotated with which generation method produced it and its pass/fail result on all four filters.

See a reference example

Sample output

PolicyBazaar Health Add-On, naming shortlist (excerpt)

FINALIST 1: CoverKind (portmanteau: cover + kind)
  Spell: PASS (3/3 testers spelled it correctly)
  Say: PASS
  Search: PASS (no competitor domination on page 1)
  Scale: PASS (works beyond health into life/auto add-ons)

CUT: HealthGuardPlus (descriptive)
  Spell: PASS   Say: PASS   Search: FAIL (page 1 dominated by an existing HDFC product)   Scale: FAIL (locked to health only)

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

At least 3 candidates generated per each of the 4 generation methods
All 12+ candidates run through the spell/say/search/scale filter with a pass/fail noted for each
Final shortlist of exactly 3 names, each with its generation method labeled