G

Any brand name with a distinctively feminine tonality. The Gillette Venus razor is an example of a gynonym. Compare Andronym.

In English, the verbal form ending in ‘-ing’, conveying the meaning of the verb but used as a noun. The commercial advantage of this sort of name is its immediacy; Martha Stewart Living magazine is a case in point.

The process by which a trademark becomes synonymous with its associated category, to the point it may cease to be protectable. Although Xerox is a brand name, it is often used to refer to any copied document, and a verb has been created from it: ‘to xerox’ means ‘to photocopy’. To a trademark attorney, genericide is a major headache; to a marketing professional, it’s “a good problem to have”. It means your offering is dominating your category, and you’ll have to take care to always pair the name with a existing or new category descriptor.Rollerblade, for example, always pairs its products with the category descriptor ‘inline skates’.