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"What's in a name?" asked Shakespeare's Juliet.

"What's not?" might be a better question for our time.

In malls or airports or even our own homes, we swim in a sea of brand names, each beckoning for mindshare. Rolex, Alpo, Krispy Kreme, Prada, Gray Goose, HBO, Fossil, TNT, Gillette, Centrino, Bose, Windows XP, Bank One, Ethan Allen, Eclipse, Sprint, ad infinitum.

Why do some brands glean the buzz-and the billions-while others go thud? That's the chief questions posed by Alex Frankel, a business writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Wired, Fast Company, and other publications. Back in the dot-com days, he worked briefly as a naming consultant. In Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business, Frankel embarks on "a modern voyage of etymology" with special attention to the naming of the BlackBerry pager, Accenture, the Porsche Cayenne, IBM's "e-business," and today's miracle drug, Viagra. We asked Frankel to talk about the monikers that wield power over our hearts.

American Way You call this book a "modern voyage of etymology." What were you searching for?

Frankel I was looking for the people who create these huge brand names that surround us today. Think about it: For most of the words in our language, you can't find a creator, but these are traceable. I wanted to know what went into inventing these words.

American Way What do brand words mean to us? How do we use them?

Frankel In several ways. For one, a brand may remind us of value. Maybe "Volvo" makes a buyer feel safe, or when we see "Starbucks," we think of a warm, hospitable place. These names also help us to navigate through a complex world that's filled with product names. That trusted name helps us make choices when we buy.

American Way Names like Viagra, Accenture, and the others start in the United States, but you say they belong to a global, "panhuman" language.

Frankel Yes. And it's a language that can go even further than English in being recognized by people everywhere. An Italian who wants to "FedEx" something may not even think of the word as being from America. For the owners of these words, being able to penetrate all those markets is a huge advantage.

American Way How does a successful brand name fit into a company's overall presentation and strategy?

Frankel Every good company has a story, and the brand name is the shortest version of that story. When people hear or see the word, some story, some value-added component, should pop into their heads. The namers think of this story ahead of time. It's critical.

American WayYou spent some time with several naming specialists including Wood Worldwide, Lexicon, Stone Yamashita, and others. What do these experts have in common?

Frankel Besides being smart, well-educated people, the commonality is an anthropological zeal for understanding the culture around them. They've got to know where these words will fit into the culture. Traditional marketers are not as focused in this way.

American Way How does a good naming project start? What's the first thing these namers do?

Frankel They step back from the job at hand and think on the big-picture scale. They survey the entire industry and create a set of objectives. What will this word do in the end? They may create hundreds of names, then filter them though that list of objectives to see which one satisfies the most. Of course, many companies don't name their products that carefully. They just point to a marketing fellow who comes up with the name and runs it by the boss.

American Way Let's talk about some of the brands you researched. Why does the name "BlackBerry" work so well for that pager?

Frankel It was named by Lexicon, which also named the Pentium chip and the Apple PowerBook. The name is friendly and accessible, and the word has pre-existing good connotations for most people. It also reinforces what the device does. Realblackberries are connected by vines and tendrils. Similarly, the BlackBerry connects you to others and helps you communicate with them.

American Way The placeholder name for what became the BlackBerry was "PocketLink." Would that have worked as well?

Frankel It's not bad, but the name doesn't differentiate the product from its rivals. PocketLink doesn't make me think of anything in particular, It could be WristLink, LapLink. It doesn't grab your attention.

American Way What about Viagra? You write that the name, not just the product, solves problems for users.

Frankel Right. The issue that Viagra addresses is not something people have been eager to talk about with friends, partners, or even their doctors. The name gives people a way to get through this difficult communication. Saying "I think I need Viagra" opens the door so a conversation can transpire. That's much easier than getting into all the specifics about why you need the drug.

American Way Once a brand name attaches to a product, it seems inevitable. But you say that many of these names would fit many other products.

Frankel Pfizer, the company that created Viagra, wants you to think of a number of qualities when you see the name-vitality, life, speed, strength. These are good connotations, not just for a pill, but for other things.

American Way So if another company had been involved, we might be driving a new Viagra right now?

Frankel That's right. It could be the name of a car or a new brand of hiking boots.

American Way Would an impotence drug called "Instarotic" outsell Viagra?

Frankel [laughs] It's going to have some trouble. First, there's not much poetry in the "insta" part. And you really don't want the connotations of "erotic" around this drug. You want to distance it from the down-market components of the sexual world.

American Way What about Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting? How was it named?

Frankel This name was created when Andersen Consulting wanted to split off from the parent company, Arthur Andersen. Landor Associates, which is owned by Young & Rubicam, came up with about 3,000 names, and employees of Andersen Consulting contributed 2,600 [additional] possibilities.

American Way The finalists included names like AcceleratedCertitude, Ceragence, and Haliageny. Why did Accenture, an employee suggestion, win out?

Frankel The employee was thinking "accent on the future." They wanted a name that was a true empty vessel, that had no echoes of the old company. And they wanted a word they could completely own in as many countries as possible. It's really part of a trend towards a new breed of synthetic names like Verizon, Altria, Agilent, and others. They stitch together pieces of words. The catch is that because these words have no intrinsic meaning, you really need a large advertising budget to get them across to people.

American Way Accenture was a break with the past, but you also focus on IBM's "e-business" campaign back in the '90s. They already had a well-respected name almost a century old.

Frankel True, but the commercialization of the Internet posed a problem for IMB and many other tech companies. Ten years ago, you mainly thought of IMB as making computers and chips. The "e-business" brand helped them make the transition to consulting. They knew where their business needed to go, and they created a word and a story to help them get there.

American Way You say there's a science fiction aspect to naming a brand. What does that mean?

Frankel You have to project and predict the future. If you just look at the present-day market, you're not doing your job. You must think two, five, ten years ahead.

American Way That's especially true in pharmaceuticals, right?

Frankel Yes, because the lengthy FDA approval time. And approval of the drug's name is part of the regulatory process. If you come up with a drug name today, the public may not see the word for five years. Much can change in that long a time. The pipeline of Viagra was three to four years from naming to market. By contrast, naming a new computer chip can go much faster because there are no regulatory hurdles in the way.

American Way Most of these namers don't like to publicize their fees, but there's a lot of money in naming brands.

Frankel Absolutely. But keep in mind that IBM spent more than $5 billion marketing the name "e-business." To a large corporation, paying $100,000 or more for a name that millions of people will know seems like a rounding error.

American Way Okay, last question. Can you explain why the Budweiser "Whassup!" campaign was so wildly popular? Did the word function like a brand name?

Frankel It did, and it instantly moved from one person to another. That's what you want. Of course, many people used the word before the Bud ads came along, but when we use it now, it carries a footnote that says Budweiser. They co-opted "Whassup!" for their own purposes.