At A Hundred Monkeys we make every word count. From naming to brand messaging, our expertise is distillation.
We believe human attention is a resource worth earning and respecting. We use language to draw people in.
We are a Berkeley, California-based naming and writing studio. Since 1990, we’ve kept busy working with passionate people who can embrace creativity without being assholes. So far, so good.
Abridge is a healthcare AI platform that uses natural language processing to accurately record, transcribe, and distill clinical conversations. A verb meaning to shorten in duration or extent, Abridge speaks to the benefits of speed and brevity—a welcome improvement on tedious notetaking of the past.
The sole participant on this project was founder Shiv Rao, a faculty member and practicing cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. As he described it, “healthcare is a really moldy industry,” so we set out to find a name that would feel like a breath of fresh air (while still appropriate for the space). As a bonus, the winning name paid homage to Pittsburgh, the City of Bridges.
Names were screened for software conflicts in the US, and Abridge received a B grade. It then cleared a deeper legal screening with their counsel.
The company’s first home on the internet was abridge.ai, and they eventually secured abridge.com.
The decision was entirely Shiv’s. After two rounds of names and some deliberation, he had narrowed it down to two contenders. In the end, Abridge won out as the more patient-friendly and layered name.
Olto is technically an automotive grade Class 2 e-bike—but with a switching mechanism that easily converts the pedals into footrests, the Olto experience is more of a hybrid. It’s just one member of the fleet at Infinite Machine, a New York-based micromobility company changing the way we navigate cities. The name Olto was directly inspired by the left side view of the bike and their team’s interest in alluding to the product silhouette.
We worked with a small dedicated group who shared their designs and dreams for this category-defying vehicle. While it would live alongside other vehicles like the larger P1 model, we knew that Olto would represent something entirely new—and the name needed to feel equally unprecedented.
We conducted preliminary trademark screening in the U.S. and the deeper legal clearance was conducted by their legal counsel.
This name didn’t require a standalone URL as it would live as a part of Infinite Machine’s existing site.
As soon as Olto was presented in the first round, it became the name to beat. The final decision was made after two rounds by the leadership team with input from the broader group.
“Nice work, you guys are good!” — Joe Cohen, Co-Founder/CEO
Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) is a high-impact philanthropy group that partners with donors to direct funding toward cost-effective, scalable causes. The name Coefficient captures their shift from single donor-focused funding to a more collective approach: “Co‑” signals collaboration with other donors, while “efficient” underscores a focus on cost-effectiveness. Finally, a coefficient is a multiplier, which captures how they aim to amplify impact together.
As Open Philanthropy underwent an entire rebrand, we worked with a transition team including their communications director, CEO, and key stakeholders across the organization to fully understand the name’s critical role in their public repositioning. We also worked in parallel with the design studio Upstatement, who brought the Coefficient name to life.
“We knew any name would take some getting used to, but this one seemed to capture something essential about our work in a way that “Open Philanthropy” no longer did.” — Naina Bajekal, Director of Communications
We knew that the name would need to be trademarked in the US. Coefficient received a ‘B’ in our preliminary screening before being further vetted by their counsel.
When paired with “Giving” and a .org TLD, Coefficient easily found a home on the internet.
Coefficient was presented as an early concept in our kickoff workshop, and it immediately stuck—especially for cofounders Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz. Although there were more strong contenders throughout the process, Coefficient was always the name to beat.
Brightband is a public benefit corporation developing AI tools to improve weather and climate-related decisions for all of humanity. The name is a reference to a bright band—a radar phenomenon that indicates the presence of melting precipitation. In the context of their work, the name signals positivity and the collective efforts of a “band” of academic researchers, meteorologists, and technologists.
We began with a name evaluation—helping the team assess their internal naming candidates, including the placeholder name, OpenEarthAI. Then, we developed a round of names related to forecasting tools, the scale of impact, and a collaborative mindset.
Names were screened for AI, machine learning, and meteorological conflicts in the US. Brightband received a B grade and ultimately cleared a deeper legal screening with their counsel.
Brightband had more than a dozen available URL’s, and they were able to pay a reasonable price for brightband.com.
First, they narrowed down to a short list of options that received support across the team. Brightband was in the mix, though it wasn’t the frontrunner until we reviewed potential URLs. It was clear from the number of options that it was the most ownable name in the set.
MIRO is an excuse to think of your workday as a collaborative canvas. Derived from Joan Miró, the Spanish painter and sculptor who painted bright, bold murals of surreal amoebic forms. His vibrant, energetic work was a perfect metaphor for bringing ideas to life. Miro can also be considered as an empty vessel name with a connection to the Spanish word for “look” or “watch.”
When we began the project, Miro (then RealTimeBoard) had offices in San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Perm. We were lucky to be able to meet with the majority of the team in San Francisco to demo the product and work through our intake process. The team wanted a short, unmistakable name that spoke to creativity and visual collaboration.
“We wanted our brand to be not just a company name but a ‘love mark’ to accelerate our word of mouth growth. So Miro is a famous Spanish artist who inspired us. His paintings have different shapes with very bright colors and we found that our boards developed in kind of the same style. We see every user or creator as an artist and their boards as their unique canvases. So we wanted to bring a little bit of art into the day-to-day job of each person who uses our product.” -Barbra Gago
Names were screened in the US and EU.
Not a project priority but the team was able to acquire miro.com
After legal review, we met with the leadership team in San Francisco and worked through the final contender names one by one. It rarely happens this way but we actually made a decision as a group, in the room.
Who do we work with?
We aren’t going to regale you with an exhaustive list of everyone we’ve had a meeting with since 1990. We’ll keep it short. What matters most to us is doing interesting work with good people.
This is a group of companies big and small where there’s mutual respect and a solid track record of collaboration.
Alphabet
Angular Ventures
Day Job
Foresite Labs
Miro
Moniker
Mucho
Okta
OpenAI
Samsung
Slanted Door Group
Smith + Diction