What’s in a name?

Beacon
Marker
Evergreen
Firefly
Lantern
Lanyard
Ansa
Loop
Navigator
Voyager

How do you name a baby let alone a brand? We had a few criteria:

1. That the name be available to trademark
2. That it be easy to say and spell
3. That it be unique within the travel industry
4. That it have all of the correct vowels
5. That our target guest doesn’t hate it

We made lists of potential brand names drawing inspiration from travel, summer camp (I’ll explain later), wayfinding, other languages, and the outdoors. Then we made lists of lists. We crossed some off, because they sounded like car models and then found out that they actually are — Lincoln Navigator, Chrysler Voyager. We got feedback from our target guests on a few options and in parallel did a trademark search. Then we started the exercise all over again. Fortunately on our second go around, we found our brand name: Lanyard.

In the same way that it takes time to get used to saying, I’m so and so’s mom when you just give birth, it took time to get comfortable saying, this is my brand, Lanyard, an elevated hostel experience. Now it just rolls off the tongue.