On this episode, I spoke with Amanda Peterson, formerly the Head of Naming and Leader of Brand Management at Google. While there, she helped establish Alphabet, Google's parent company, as well as sister companies like Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car company. Before Google, Amanda headed up naming at HP—before I held that role—and also worked at Logitech and Landor. She recently left Silicon Valley and is now Head of Marketing and Communications at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Amanda and I go way back. I first met her when I was Director of Verbal Identity at Interbrand San Francisco and she was my client at HP. And then, funny enough, when she went to Google, I went over and took her place as Global Head of Naming at HP.

Amanda and I talked about naming briefs, her approach to name generation, one of her favorite names (Bluetooth), her pet peeves in brand names, and what she likes most about being a namer.