Where do all the fonts get their names from?

1.06K views

Where do all the fonts get their names from?

In: Other

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a little unclear what you mean, especially as you normally don’t name fonts, but rather typefaces and within each typeface normally there are many fonts. Whoever created (or ordered) the typeface gets to name it. Some are named after their predecessors, the “fonts” which were made long before computers, in the dawn of movable type, and in some cases even long before that. Some are named after their creators, like Gill Sans named after Eric Gill. On top of that often comes descriptive qualifiers, like bold, narrow, condensed, italic, and many others, to describe the style of each individual font in the typeface.

It’s kind of like having a child, you choose what you name it. For instance a font I made years and years ago I based off the letters on the Nintendo Entertainment System gamepad, I called that font Nentindo Consolic.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Typefaces are a product, like a car. Companies that make them sell them,. They name them, like car companies, so that they can better communicate with buyers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Usually from the font designer/designers. But a lot of time the words in a font mean something. So, for example, Times New Roman was a new style of Roman font that was invented for the Times (they dont actually use it anymore, I don’t think). Comic Sans is a comic font that is sans serif (which means without [serif](https://www.97thfloor.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Serif-Sans-1-04-1.jpg?width=1000&height=399&name=Serif-Sans-1-04-1.jpg)). A font family is slight variations of the same font. So, Helvetica Neue is an updated version of Helvetica. And Arial Bold is a bolded version of Arial. Some of the words you might see in fonts, like, Gothic, Sans, Serif, Italics, Slab, Script, Stencil, Calligraphy, Blackletter, Dingbat, Monospace, etc, all tell the user something about how the font looks. Its sort of like naming shoes sneakers, clogs, mary janes, oxfords, or stilettos. If you know shoes (or fonts), then you know something about that shoe (or font) just from the name.

As for how names are specifically chosen, it’s often just a random word that suits the style of the typeface (or that looks good in the typeface). Futura is a futuristic-looking, modern font… Well, it was futuristic looking in 20s or 30s when it was made. Lol. If there’s a unique letter or ligature (two or three letters that appear differently when typed together – different from kerning, which is the spacing between letters), then the chosen name will often display this special attribute. This is especially true of fonts that are made by a single artist or designer and sold on a small, individual scale, rather than fonts produced from a major forge (the somewhat humorous name for a company that makes fonts. Font forge). So, for example, the W in [this font](https://creativemarket.com/DesignSomething/104244-Winchester-Condensed-Font) and the BR in [this font](https://creativemarket.com/TobiasSaul/1963894-Brilon-Font-Extras) and the I, M, and E in [this one](https://creativemarket.com/mlkwsn999/3437201-Empires-Graffitty-Street-Brush). This just effectively shows off the uniqueness of a font when people are scrolling through. It represents the font in its best light.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Garamond gets its name from Claude Garamond (c 1500s). Likewise Gill Sans gets its name from Eric Gill. The “Sans” simply refers to “sans serif,” a [font lacking serifs](https://visualhierarchy.co/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/serif-sansserif.jpg). Fonts like Papyrus, Jokerman and Comic Sans get their names from the style they’re going for. Same with Futura etc.

There’s a good amount of variety… it’s often linked with the creator and/or style they were going after.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The designer of the font chooses a name. Or their boss. Or the person who paid for the design. They choose the name because they like it, or because they want a name that is related to (or suggestive of) another font, or to honour a previous font designer, or for fun, or any other reason they happen to have.

In 1984, the font designers for the original Apple Macintosh [named the fonts after cities](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=World_Class_Cities.txt), such as Chicago, London, San Francisco, Athens and Geneva.

Occasionally a voice cries out from a burning bush in the desert ordering the designer to use a particular name, but honestly that hardly ever happens these days. *wink*