One of the most famous examples of smart name testing comes from Tim Ferriss and how he chose the title for "The 4-Hour Work Week." Originally, Ferriss wanted to call his book "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" - a provocative title that his editor quickly shot down for obvious reasons.

Instead of guessing which alternative would work best, Ferriss decided to test his options using a clever Google Ads experiment. He identified relevant keywords that his target audience would be searching for - terms like "401k," "world travel," "retirement," and "language learning." Then he created ads featuring different potential book titles to see which ones generated the most clicks.

His shortlist included several options: "Broadband and White Sand," "Millionaire Chameleon," and "The 4-Hour Work Week." While it seems obvious now that "The 4-Hour Work Week" would be the winner - given that it became a massive bestseller - at the time it wasn't Ferriss's personal favorite.

After running the test for a week, the results were clear: "The 4-Hour Work Week" had the highest click-through rate by a significant margin. The entire experiment cost him just $200, but it led to choosing a title that would eventually sell millions of copies and launch an entire personal brand.

What makes this story so compelling is how counterintuitive the results were. The winning title wasn't the most creative or the most personally appealing to the author - it was simply the one that resonated most strongly with real people who were actively searching for solutions to work-life balance problems.

Today, you could run this exact same type of name testing using AI personas in Ask Rally without spending $200 on Google Ads or waiting a week for results. You could generate hundreds of personas representing your target audience and test unlimited naming variations instantly.

Step 1: Define Your Naming Context

Start by clearly describing what you're naming - product, service, book, company, or campaign. Include key features, target market, competitive landscape, and the main benefits or emotions you want the name to convey.

Step 2: Generate Your Target Personas

Create AI personas that match your ideal audience profile. Consider demographics, psychographics, industry knowledge, and purchase behaviors. For comprehensive testing, generate 200-500 personas across different segments.

Step 3: Prepare Your Name Options

Present 3-8 potential names for testing. Include your top internal favorites along with more creative or unexpected options. Avoid testing too many names at once as this can overwhelm personas and reduce response quality.

Step 4: Test Core Name Metrics

Measure the essential elements that predict naming success: immediate appeal and first impression, memorability and ease of recall, relevance to your product or service category, uniqueness compared to competitors, pronunciation difficulty and spelling complexity, and emotional associations or mental images the name creates. Ask personas to explain their reasoning to understand what drives their reactions.

Step 5: Use Monadic Testing Approach

Show each persona only one name to avoid comparison bias and get pure reactions. This approach mirrors real-world conditions where customers encounter your name in isolation, not compared to alternatives.

Step 6: Test Names in Context

Present names within realistic scenarios - as they would appear in ads, on packaging, in search results, or in conversation. Context significantly impacts how names are perceived and remembered.

Step 7: Measure Behavioral Intent

Beyond asking what personas think, measure their likely actions: click-through intent if it were an ad, likelihood to remember and search for the name later, willingness to recommend or share the name, and purchase consideration if they encountered this name in the market.

Step 8: Analyze Response Patterns

Look for names that score consistently high across multiple metrics and persona segments. Pay attention to unexpected winners that outperform internal favorites - these often indicate market opportunities.

Step 9: Test Memorability with Follow-up

After initial evaluation, return to the same personas days later with a fill-in-the-blank memory test to see which names stuck. True memorability can only be measured through recall, not recognition.