Abound Logic
Amia
Balance Point
Bizet Human Asset Management
BrightScale
Cooligy
Mayer Laboratories
Mobius Venture Capital
New Routes to Community Health
Obopay
Post + Beam
Sauté Your Way
Sustain
TravelSmith
TRIA
TRUSTe
back to Naming page

Steelcase, a global leader in office furniture, needed a name for a new, moderately priced office chair. The name needed to be short and consistent with other Steelcase chair names: Leap, Think, and Move. Earlier naming attempts had been frustrated by trademark conflict and by linguistic objections from overseas dealers. After two rounds of “real-word” name development, I created a new list of lightly coined names that suggested the desired objectives: comfortable, flexible, customizable. Amia satisfied all criteria: coined from French ami (friend) and Spanish/Italian mia (mine), it communicates amiability and—because of the m consonant—nurturance. Its short, upbeat sound feels modern and bright.