Zinzin

In short

Zinzin is a small Berkeley naming agency started in 2011 by Jay Jurisich, who spent nine years as co-founder and creative director of the naming firm Igor and, before that, was editorial director at A Hundred Monkeys. He still leads every project, with a few namers, writers and researchers around him. The name is French slang for 'bonkers' and also a placeholder word, which says a lot about the house style. It is #9 on our naming ranking.

Clutch is its most visible result. SourcingLine, a DC research firm, wanted to replace its camel-case placeholder name with something that had an available .com or .co domain, and came away with Clutch. Ember was named for a temperature-controlled mug designed by Ammunition, and the name has stretched as the company moved into baby bottles and shipping boxes. When Mavenlink and Kimble merged, Zinzin named the new company Kantata; the client says kickoff to launch took about four months.

Tech and consumer companies, from startups to mid-sized firms, that want a name with a story in it, invented or real, and want the senior namer doing the work, suit Zinzin; it also takes rush jobs and clients outside the US. It does not design logos or identities, so budget for a separate designer, and a global corporation running naming across dozens of markets and product lines may want a bigger team.