Font Naming and Avoiding Names Already in Use

Dan C. Rinnert
Dan C. Rinnert Posts: 12
in Type Business
Do you ever worry about your font names, especially when you find one that's not in use?

I have a font-in-progress and I haven't really had a name for it.  I've had a working name but that was never intended to be a final name.  I don't know what the standard naming approach is, but I like to have a name picked out prior to completion.  So, for this particular font, today I finally came up with a name that I like.

Of course, last week or the week before, I came up with a name that I thought would be perfect for a particular style font I had in mind.  Unfortunately, someone had already thought of it for the exact same style font.  So, it was a brilliant name.  Yay me.  Also, bummer.

I hoped that wouldn't be the case with today's name.  I found this thread with a list of places to check:

I started with MyFonts.com.  Not in use.  Checked FontData.  Not in use.  Went down the list.  Not in use anywhere.

One site was like, are you sure you didn't mean "House Party"?  Um, no.  Not even close.

On the one hand, it's like, yay!  It's not in use.  It's all mine!

On the other hand, it's like, has no one thought of this one because it's a really bad name for a font?

I guess the only thing to do is to finish it and hope it doesn't make Ray Larabie's List.
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Comments

  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 821
    If you are expecting any degree of commercial success the name matters a lot because, with font caching, otherwise you can have conflicts that effect functionality.

    I always start by just googling the name plus the word font because that casts the widest net.  Before we commit we have an attorney do a names search.  

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