As a professional brand namer, I have had the chance to name all kinds of things. Hit game consoles. Popular TV brands. Big banks. Sports apps. VCs.

So when telling people about my work, the question naturally leads to, well… what did you name your kids?

The short answer is Sora and Suzu. 

But like any good name and brand, you need a little context around who my kids are, who my wife and I are, and how we came up with these names.

The time came to start thinking about names around September 2011 and March 2013, and being in the naming business, I wasn’t just going to gloss over naming my children and pick a name that we simply “liked.”

It’s too important of a decision for them, and for us. And it’s too complex to sift through literally hundreds of thousands of names. I certainly wasn't about to crowdsource the baby naming to friends and family. What a nightmare.

So my wife, whose name is Sayuri, and I decided to go through a short yet structured naming exercise, complete with many of the same steps I deploy when developing real brand names.

Step 1 — Set Criteria 

When we name brands, we automatically have a whole host of objectives, very often summed up in the form of big, weighty questions.

  • Does it appeal to our audience?
  • Does it make sense for the business?
  • Is it differentiated?
  • Is it legally available?

When naming a person, you don’t have to overcome as many hurdles. However, if you jump into naming without any focus, you won’t have anything to base your decision on. And ultimately you may falter throughout the process. Why make a process that’s inherently stressful even more stressful, especially during something so monumental as a pregnancy?

My wife and I had a number of criteria, but they were all designed to get at the heart of who we are, and ultimately who we think our kids will grow up to be.

Criteria 1: Japanese first name

My wife is Japanese. And I lived in Japan for many years — that’s where we met! So when we knew we were having a child, we quickly decided that the right thing to do for us was to have a Japanese first name. It just felt right, especially given the fact that they would have my last name — Milano.

Criteria 2: Short

These days, brevity is everything. While there are so many beautiful female Japanese names that are slightly longer, many of them are hard for non-Japanese to remember or pronounce, and often they automatically get shortened. We didn’t want that. We just wanted short names. Two syllables max.

Criteria 3: Starts with “S”

I know, I know what you’re saying: “Oh Scott, you’re one of thoooose people?” And the answer is yes. We wanted to do all of our kids’ names with the letter S — It’s something my wife and I share (Scott & Sayuri), it’s something her parents share (Shirou & Shizuko). Plus, it’s just about the coolest letter in the alphabet, so why the heck not? More importantly, it brings order and focus to the naming of our kids.

Step 2 — Start Naming 

The above were our first tier criteria. By starting with Japanese, ensuring that the name is short, and knowing that it must start with the letter S, we really honed in on a relatively small set of options. So we started looking through baby name books — in English & Japanese — to develop a long list of about 30 options.

Here’s the combined list we developed for both kids:

  • Saffron
  • Samara
  • Sami
  • Samira
  • Sands
  • Sandy
  • Sarah
  • Sedona
  • Sera
  • Serena
  • Seti
  • Seta
  • Shari
  • Shina
  • Shine
  • Shona
  • Shushu
  • Shyla
  • Sidi
  • Siena
  • Silk
  • Silver
  • Snow
  • Sonata
  • Sora (winner!)
  • Star
  • Sui
  • Siren
  • Summer
  • Sunday
  • Suzu (winner!)
  • Suzuran
  • Sylvia

You can see that not all of our names above met the first three criteria. And that’s okay. It’s important to have order, but be flexible. Sometimes the unexpected wins out in naming — for both people and brands.

Step 3 — Shortlist & Decide

Once we were able to focus our main criteria and develop meaningful, high-potential names, we found the rest of the process relatively easy. We had some additional criteria to help us zero in on the final contenders.

Criteria 4: Works globally

Given that we go back and forth between the US and Japan regularly, and will travel to and possibly live in other countries once the kids grow older, we wanted to make sure the names we chose were palatable across languages and cultures.

We didn’t do any fancy cultural and linguistic screening like we would for a regular project, but we did do some searching online, and polling with friends who speak various languages.

The more important thing here was that the names be memorable for people from all different types of backgrounds. By keeping names to two syllables max, and sticking to a consonant-vowel construct, which is essentially how most Japanese names work, we were setting their names up for success abroad.

Criteria 5: Is slightly unique, but not too different

We didn’t want to call our kids Sara and Sue — I grew up knowing dozens of girls with both names. Sora and Suzu are similar in sound, and sometimes people who are not good with names will confuse them, but as soon as you understand the names Sora and Suzu, you get them. They’re slightly different, but not way out there.

Criteria 6: Has a nice, relevant meaning

So what does Sora mean? Technically you can define it in several different ways based on the Kanji, or Japanese characters, you choose. We won’t get into that, as it’s probably another blog post.

Essentially Sora means "sky." We liked the fit because it is a metaphor, beautiful, timeless and majestic. Suzu can also mean many things, but its core meaning is “little bell.” Again, sticking to the metaphor theme — though it wasn’t essential — we liked it because it was real, cute, charming, again timeless, and it combines visual and audible elements.

We had two candidates in the running for each kid, then we waited to meet them until we finally decided.

As for middle names, we pulled from family names. Sora’s middle name is Marie, which was my grandmother’s middle name. And Suzu’s middle name is Elle (pronounced like the magazine of course). It’s a tip of the hat to the “L” in "Lorna," which is my mother’s name. Elle just seemed to have a tighter ring to it.

And that, dear reader, is how we ended up with "Sora" and "Suzu." The names match our criteria. And the girls have grown into them perfectly.

What happens if you don’t go through a process like ours? You’ll be like the majority of parents and just pull a name out of a hat, or honor a relative by hijacking her or his name. Both are fine ways to go — just not for this namer.

While the details of our criteria may not be for everyone, we'd recommend the general process to anyone who is having trouble deciding on a name for their little one. Set your criteria, start naming, then shortlist and decide.

Whether you're seeking a name more like Sora or Sara, you'll end up with the perfect name for your new addition.


Scott Milano is the founder & managing director at Tanj.