Why some product names feel true before they mean anything

Offered two invented names for an ice cream, most people pick the one containing a long back vowel as the creamier product. Offered two names for a knife, most pick the one built from hard stops as the sharper. Neither name means anything in any language.

What everyone sees

Names are assumed to work purely by association: they mean nothing until advertising fills them, at which point the meaning is whatever was spent on it. On that account a choice between two invented names is arbitrary and any preference is noise.

What is actually happening

Phonetic symbolism is measurable and stable across unrelated languages. Front vowels are read as small, light and fast; back vowels as large, heavy and slow; stops as hard where fricatives are soft. Experiments using invented brand names find these mappings shifting judgements of attributes the name says nothing about, and the shift appears before any exposure to the product itself.

Why it stays hidden

The judgement is instant and pre-verbal, so it is remembered as an impression of the product rather than of the word. Nobody can report having heard a vowel and inferred creaminess. Naming agencies know the mappings and sell the result rather than the method, which keeps a systematic technique looking like taste.