Design System

Product naming

One word, all caps, operationally grounded.

The pattern

One real word or a two-word compound. All capitals. Operational or tactical resonance. The name must carry the register of a fielded defense program - doctrinal, grounded, unambiguous on the procurement line.

Established set:

  • GRIDWATCH - compound; “grid” (tactical overlay, control infrastructure) + “watch” (sentinel, surveillance)
  • GHOST GRID - compound; stealth + networked field
  • OVERWATCH - single word; real military term for covering-fire positioning
  • SECTOR - single word; tactical geography

Exceptions

QRF is the only acronym in the catalog. It survives because the initialism is an established military term with instant recognition across the target audience. In running prose, always write it as Quick Reaction Force on first mention per document, then QRF thereafter. The product wordmark remains QRF in Barlow Condensed.

No other acronyms are permitted. New products do not get to invent initialisms to shortcut the naming work.

Banned naming registers

Names drawn from any of the following are rejected outright:

  • Mythology - any pantheon. No Greek (Apollo, Athena, Hydra, Cerberus, Pegasus), no Norse (Thor, Odin, Valkyrie), no Roman (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter), no Egyptian (Anubis, Horus, Ra), no other. Mythological names borrow unearned weight and break the contemporary operational register FDT lives in - they read as lazy.
  • Fantasy / sci-fi register. No Excalibur, no Starfire, no Nebula, no invented compounds that sound like ship names from a space opera.
  • Animals unless operationally grounded. Falcon (real weapons program) is fine; Dolphin or Panda is not. If an animal name has real military precedent (e.g., BLACKBIRD, TOMCAT) it may be considered; if it’s decorative, rejected.
  • Generic project codes. No “Project Alpha,” “Initiative 7,” “Program X,” “FDT-NEXT.” These read as placeholder names that forgot to get replaced.
  • Founder names, insider jokes, internal references. Not on the customer-facing wordmark.
  • Numeric suffixes on existing products. GRIDWATCH 2 is not a new product; it’s a version. New capabilities get new names. If the product truly is a successor, it gets its own word.

Naming rationale check

Before a new name is approved, it passes four tests:

  1. Does it carry the register of a procurement-line program? If it reads as a consumer product, a band, or a ship from fiction, reject.
  2. Is the word or compound operationally grounded? It should map to a concrete warfighting concept - surveillance, fires, movement, command, logistics, decision - not a tone or feeling.
  3. Is it pronounceable and typeable? One or two syllables per word ideally. No intentional misspellings (ZYNE, KRYPT) to force uniqueness.
  4. Does it collide with a real existing program? Quick search of DoD program names, procurement databases, and contractor catalogs. Naming collisions in this space are embarrassing and sometimes legally costly.