Team

Experience is our essence.

Clive Chafer

Clive Chafer has been in the naming business since 1987, almost at its birth. 

He has worked for two major naming and branding consultancies during that time, before becoming a freelance namer and founding WeMakeNames. 

His naming career began with Placek & Associates (now Lexicon Branding), where he became the company’s first full-time creative associate as well as Marketing Director. In 1998 he moved to Master-McNeil (naming.com)in Berkeley, California, where he advanced to Creative Director, a position he held from 2002 to 2006. 

He has subsequently done freelance work for companies such as Interbrand (London, New York, etc.), Heirloom (San Francisco) and Joosnabhan (Paris), before establishing WeMakeNames with Bradley Charbonneau. 

Among his clients during the past 20+ years are Apple Computer, Intel, Subaru, Coors, Buick, Procter & Gamble, Volkswagen and Charles Schwab. Successful product names developed include PowerBook for Apple, Eos for Volkswagen, Zima for Coors and Outback for Subaru; corporate names include PayPal and Conexant. 

Clive is a linguist who is fluent in French, and competent in Russian, Spanish and German, as well as Latin.

Bradley Charbonneau

Bradley Charbonneau has a strong mix of consulting, marketing, and language experience. 

His naming career began with Master-McNeil in Berkeley, California in the heyday of the dot-com boom after he saw an ad for the dream job that described him perfectly: "a linguist with an MBA."

Bradley received his international MBA at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and his BA in French from UC Santa Barbara. He worked for Magnus Management Consultants in The Netherlands, an IT consultancy and has also done marketing consulting work for a number of European companies including Philips, Mannesmann, Varta, and Röhm. 

Before moving to Europe, he was a project manager and translator for the language translation firm Berlitz. 

He has also written and published 34 books. He speaks Dutch, French, and German and gets by in Spanish.