Eat My Words review

The portfolio page lists roughly 180 names, each with the product or company category attached, and a separate before/after section for rebrands. Many are trivially checkable as real, currently-trading brands: Neato robotic vacuums, Smitten ice cream, Spoon Me frozen yogurt, Plenty vertical farming, Welltower, Torani Puremade, StarKist Seasations, Burger King Mac n' Cheetos, Twitter Fleets, and Dream First Bank (First National Bank of Syracuse rebranded under that name in September 2022, independently reported in trade press). The about page carries eight testimonials attributed to named executives at named companies (CMO of Neato Robotics, CEO of Dishcraft Robotics, founders of Smitten, Spoon Me, Potion, Grail, CEO of Watermark), which is client confirmation of the engagement rather than an anonymous case study. Held below Excellent because every attribution is self-published: no independent source I could read confirms that this firm created any specific name, and the third-party pages that repeat the credits are reprints of the firm's own bio copy. The portfolio also mixes eras without dating entries, so a buyer cannot separate current-team work from wins going back to 2005.

What this dimension measures: Names the firm created that are verifiably in use by real companies — the strongest evidence this category can offer, because a shipped name is public. Attributed, checkable names for recognisable clients score 4-5. Case studies without the client's confirmation, or a portfolio dominated by decades-old wins, score 2-3: naming credits are notoriously contested and old glory says little about the current team. No attributable names scores 2. Counts for 25% of the weighted score.

Evidence: partly checkable — corroborated in part against the sources below; the remainder rests on the agency’s own account.

A real, specific process is published as far as it goes: a proprietary Creative Brief covering brand story, strategy, target market, domain needs and competitors, then a team Kickoff Meeting, then successive rounds of names. Candidate volume is stated numerically on the small-business tiers (50+ names, plus 25+ more from a second namer on the top tier). The firm publishes explicit name criteria it screens against (evocative, memorable, emotionally engaging, likeable, scalable, free of spelling and pronunciation challenges, timeless not trendy) and a free public evaluation test built on the same standard, plus a stated position against coined and constructed names. What is missing is exactly what this rubric weights most: cross-market linguistic and cultural screening is named only as a variable that moves the price ('linguistic and cultural screening needs') on the product naming page. No steps, no markets or territories, no reviewer arrangement, and no description of how territories are developed before candidate generation. Capped at Adequate for that absence.

What this dimension measures: A published, specific process: how territories are developed, how many candidates are generated, and — critically — linguistic and cultural screening across the markets the client sells in. A described multi-market linguistic check with named steps scores 4-5. A generic 'we brainstorm then check' description scores 2-3. No described method scores 2. Weight specificity: the firms that do this well tend to write about it in detail, so vagueness is informative. Counts for 20% of the weighted score.

Evidence: vendor stated — the agency’s own claim, recorded as theirs rather than ours.

A pre-screening step is stated concretely on the published price card: 'Professional trademark knockout screens on your top 5 name choices' in the Snack Pack tier, with a 'Free Brand Protection Call with Indie Law' -- an outside law firm -- bundled alongside it. Nothing on the site implies the firm's screening substitutes for legal clearance; the Fun Size deliverable list ends with referrals to trademark attorneys, and the qualification criteria exclude applicants 'in software or another insanely crowded trademark class,' which is an honest statement about where screening risk is highest. The trademark registration landscape is also named as a factor that moves the full-service price. Not Excellent: the documented knockout step appears only on the low-priced value-menu tiers, class strategy is never discussed, and the flagship $15,000-$49,000 engagements describe no screening step at all beyond 'trademark requirements' as a pricing input.

What this dimension measures: What the firm does before candidates reach the client: knockout searches, class strategy, and how it hands off to trademark counsel. A stated pre-screening step with honest boundaries — screening is not legal clearance, and firms that say so score better than firms that imply it is — scores 4-5. Silence on trademark process scores 2, because presenting unscreened names wastes the one thing this purchase buys. Any implication that the firm's screening substitutes for counsel is a red flag, scored 1-2. Counts for 15% of the weighted score.

Evidence: vendor stated — the agency’s own claim, recorded as theirs rather than ours.

Unusually open for this category. Full-service company naming is published as $15,000-$49,000 and product naming as $15,000-$32,500, in both cases with the drivers listed (scope, timing, trademark landscape, domain needs, number of rounds). Fun Size is priced at $6,000 on its own page, and a public value-menu page prices three fixed packages at $5,000 / $6,000 / $8,000 with discounted prices of $2,497 / $2,997 / $3,997. Scope honesty is also present: the advisory session states plainly that it 'is not a brainstorming session and not a deliverables-heavy project'; the firm states naming is 100% of what it does rather than implying a full rebrand; legal filing is explicitly someone else's job. Held at Strong rather than Excellent because the published numbers contradict each other -- the services page says packages run '$17,5000 to $49,000' (a typo, and a different floor from the $15,000 on the business naming page), the product page prices Fun Size at $5,000 while the Fun Size page says $6,000, and a live 'secret value menu' page still shows prices marked 'thru 5/31/2024' with different figures again.

What this dimension measures: Naming fees are famously opaque. Published fees, ranges or stated starting points score 4-5. A stated engagement structure without numbers scores 2-3. Nothing at all scores 1-2. Score scope honesty alongside: a firm that states what a naming engagement excludes (identity, strategy, legal filing) is more useful than one implying a full rebrand. Counts for 15% of the weighted score.

Evidence: vendor stated — the agency’s own claim, recorded as theirs rather than ours.

Fully itemised at the low end and undefined at the high end. The value-menu and Fun Size pages specify the package contents item by item: Creative Brief, one-hour kickoff call, 50+ name candidates, a 90-minute live name review session, meeting notes and Zoom recording, a written document containing all proposed names and brainstorming links, a 30-45 minute follow-up on taglines and domains, three months of email support, knockout screens on the top five, and a referral list. For the $15,000-$49,000 engagements the only stated quantity is 'dozens' of names and rounds are described as a price variable ('number of rounds your brand requires') rather than a stated number, so the buyer of the main product cannot know the shortlist size or round count before contracting. No page states a contingency for the case where every candidate fails clearance.

What this dimension measures: What the client actually receives: how many candidate names per round, how many rounds, what accompanies them (rationale, screening results, territory map), and what happens if every candidate dies in legal. A stated structure with a stated contingency for clearance failure scores 4-5. Undefined deliverables score 2 — in a category where the visible output is a shortlist, not knowing its size before contracting is buying blind. Counts for 10% of the weighted score.

Evidence: vendor stated — the agency’s own claim, recorded as theirs rather than ours.

Partially disclosed. The product naming page states the first round of names comes back 'in a few weeks' after the kickoff meeting, and the Fun Size page says the work happens 'over the following weeks' between the brief and the name review session. Capacity is also stated honestly: only one to two Fun Size clients are accepted per month. There is no published kickoff-to-final-candidates timeline for the full-service engagement and no per-round turnaround, so a buyer planning a launch date cannot size the project from the site.

What this dimension measures: Stated engagement timelines from kickoff to final candidates. Published, realistic timelines score 4-5 — naming projects run weeks, not days, and honesty beats speed. Undisclosed scheduling scores 2. Counts for 10% of the weighted score.

Evidence: vendor stated — the agency’s own claim, recorded as theirs rather than ours.

I read the firm's Clutch profile first-hand: the profile exists and lists a $10,000+ minimum project size and a $300+ hourly rate, but carries zero client reviews. No G2 or Google review base was located. The firm's own /reviews/ page is not client reviews at all -- it is a set of blurbs praising the founder's book from authors, professors and editors, which says nothing about delivery on a paid naming engagement. A FeaturedCustomers profile shows a rating figure, but the entries there are vendor-submitted testimonials (the same three that appear on the firm's own site) behind an upgrade prompt, so I cite no number from it. What does exist is eight on-site testimonials attributed to named executives at named companies, which a buyer could plausibly chase down as references. Independent, verified review base: none located.

What this dimension measures: Independent, verified reviews or checkable client references. A substantial verified base scores 4-5; a handful scores 2-3; none scores 2. Low weight deliberately: boutique naming firms run on referral and small annual project counts, so a thin review footprint is normal and the in-market names matter more. Counts for 5% of the weighted score.

Evidence: verified — checked against a named source you can open; the links under Sources below are where to check it yourself.

Stronger here: Tanj scores Excellent on the same dimension.