A while ago I realized that there are only two kinds of brand names: unsuitable names and good-enough names. There is no such thing as a perfect name. While unsuitable names can ruin a brand’s chance of success, no name can guarantee a brand’s success. In fact, when you start looking at the most successful brands, their names were often created almost accidentally.

That’s why I liked this graphic I stumbled across recently. It tells the story of how some of the biggest brand names came about. Not one of them was a thoroughly designed name, that branding experts considered perfect.