Font names: Arachnid to Walt

I have many more names than released fonts (way many), and

I have two main schemes:

1. Things that *sound* nice (in addition to making at least some sense), like "Brutaal".

2. Things that start with "Pa" (like my last name): this is better for text fonts.

hhp

In order of importance: Something that is not already taken; is evocative and/or descriptive; uses glyphs that illustrate the font well; is easy to remember and pronounce; is not too lengthy; is clever and/or funny (if appropriate); starts with a letter early in the alphabet (hopefully); and anything else that comes to mind.

I've never explicitly stated these rules before (even to myself), but these are the kinds of things I think about when coming up with a new name.

i generally name them around their primary concept (example: my eighties revival family is named "gia" after a notorious fashion model of the period).

I keep a little list of likely names as they occur to me, usually when I'm reading something unrelated to type: books about mediaeval musical instruments, street maps of foreign cities, and once when I misread the title of a book upsidedown. Strangely, I sometimes find a typographic connection after the fact. I spotted a street name in Paris, and thought 'How very elegant, that would make a nice name for a display-size Didot or some such'. So I made a note of it and not long after found the street mentioned in a biographical note on a famous French punchcutter who used to live and work there. Spooky.

Like John, I collect words and names that I think my make good typeface names. They tend to come from my interests in classical music and jazz, natural history, and printing history. But also just great-sounding, evocative words. Often a great name will begin to suggest a typeface design.

Ironically, my first soon-to-be-commercially-available font, Whitman, was named after the fact, when the first name met with a lukewarm reception. Renaming it was very hard and took me several months. The other names on my list had already suggested different designs in my mind and I couldn't bring myself to switch them, so I had to look further afield to find the right fit.

In the end, it has to just *feel* right.

While a great name won't sell a mediocre typeface, I think a great typeface can be hindered by a mediocre name.

Some famous guy once said: "Before I make something, I need a good name for it." It sounds backwards, but I think it just goes to show the primacy of *sound*. I too have a couple of pages of names, and it's sad to think that I'll never have enough fonts to use them with, which makes it tempting to churn out 2 fonts a week like some people seem to like to do... Another idea: name your additional styles! Italics are especially good candidates for having their own names (even if you supress it in the font menu).

Kent: What was Whitman's original name?!

It was Walt. And I think it would have been a fantastic name for a font.

re-naming fonts due to market conditions is just the worst. it's like re-naming a child who's grown into their name. gia was originally supposed to be "atari baby," but it was already used by another foundry. that one took months to change.

My next font will be named "Unca Walt."

Hooray.

Hrant, it doesn't matter. Water under the bridge. Ancient history. Forget about it.

But that puts me in mind: my mother told me once that my father wanted to name me either Balthazar or Nebuchadnezzar. He was in seminary at the time. Some things you just don't really ever really need to know.

:-)

BTW, I was thinking sommelier school...

Speaking of re-naming. Michael Harvey's Moonglow was originally called Jelly Roll (after Jelly Roll Morton; Michael is a big jazz fan). This was apparently okay until the marketing folk at Adobe realised that Jelly Roll had sexual connotations. So now we have Moonglow, which is not nearly so good a name, although still jazz-related.