Name is the first identity of your business, startup, or website.
Many businesses and websites have failed in the past because of the wrong choice of name—one that failed to connect and amaze the audience, one that does not stand out from your competitors.
Finding the right name that resonates with your audience could be a little tricky, surrounded by a lot of uncertainties. Whatever you choose, you will always some early confusion such as:
- Is my idea clear?
- Will this name work?
- Am I going to get it a domain name?
- Isn’t this name too long or short?
- Is it a childish name?
- Is it a boring name?
Your business will someday become popular in the world with the name you choose today; therefore you need to take proper steps to name your business or website.
In this article, I will share tips and 6 major approaches that will help you to find a name for your business, website, startup, etc. in a way that will bring out your brand in the most unique manner.
Business Naming Tips:
- Brainstorm a list of different ideas and try to find a name that is simple but unique. This will help your brand stand out in the crowd. Your brand name should not be very difficult , that your audience cannot even understand it.
- Make sure the Domain name is available. If your brand name is unique, you’re most likely to get a domain name but you need to check out if your domain is not on the costly side.
(Visit Bluehost to check domain name availability) - Think of a name that is not too hard to read. If your customers cannot read your brand name, they would not connect to your brand. Your brand name must represent your services and your customers.
- Don’t pick a name that limit your scalability. As your business/startup or website grows, you might get opportunity to expand your business product/services to relatable side-topics. and in those situation, if you have a unthoughtful name, it will restrict your expansion.
- Choose a name for which you have personal liking. You can use business name generator to help.
- Don’t pick a business name that is too similar to your competitors.
Approaches to Find a Business Name
For naming your business or startup, here we will check 6 approaches. Here is an image that list down some existing top businesses name based on those approaches.
Let’s now start looking at each of these business naming approaches so that you can use of these approaches and find a perfect business name for your startup, business or website.
1. Creative Mix of Words
It is one of the popular approaches that several founders and website creators have used.
In this approach, all you need to do is fix two or more related short words into one and make a creative, catchy, compound name.
You have higher chances to getting a creative name, that is simple as well as relatable to your business. You can follow following steps to get your business name with this approach.
Step 1. List down all keywords or words that relate to your business/ideas
Step 2. Intermix two or more words and try to come up with a meaningful mixture of words.
Step 3. Check it domain availability and purchase it.
Resource link: Purchase hosting and get first domain for free.
2. Fake It Until You Make It
The success of your business depends on your hardship and persistence.
Even though a name has a direct consequence on how well your business goes, ultimately it’s not an essential factor for success.
So, choose whatever name you feel confident about. It can be anything. But, always have a pleasant story behind choosing a spooky or uncommon name.
For example:
Flyingcatmarketing – A marketing agency that got its name from the founder’s cat that fell from building and landed safe.
Google – Top most company in the world that gets its name from Googol which is a number (1 followed by 100 zeros)
So, if you have a story that can be engaging for your audience, then feel free to use that story as a core idea for any name.
3. Misspelling Isn’t always bad!
To get a unique domain you can always misspell your brand name.
But why misspelling works?
Well, because human minds functions in a way to recognize mistakes more easily than perfect things. And, hence psychology play its own role with misspelled business names.
This can help your brand get noticed. Here are some of the ways you can misspell your brand name:
- Adding “ly” at the end of the name like grammarLY
- Dropping out vowels from your brand name
- Using a letter twice or thrice, for example, “ iii”
4. Your Name When It’s Personal
You can always use your first name, last name, or a combination of the two to name your brand. There are many multinational companies that have used the same strategy. For example TATA
Using your name to build your business has many advantages, here are some :
- Creates credibility and trust
- Using your name will help you make a unique brand and help your brand stand out among the competitors.
- It will help you make your name in the market and people who you will socialize with will also remember your brand along with you.
5. Add Something With Popular Name (Like New York Times)
Merging your brand name with some already existing popular names can help you accelerate your business. For example: If you are looking for a name for a publishing house in your city and you name it “Lucknow Times” inspired by “ The New York Times”.
Your customers will resonate with your brand with the most famous “ The New York Times” and thus will easily trust your company and give it a chance.
5. Abbreviations Also Work Perfect
Many top companies like BBC, BMW, KFC, etc. have used abbreviations as their brand names.
Sometimes these abbreviations do have some meaning while most of the time they are simply just a compilation of a few letters.
Some companies also use their initials to shorten their brand name.
You can abbreviate your brand name if your brand has a very lengthy name. You should also observe what people usually call your brand.
A book for building a brand Story
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Final Call
Your business name is the first and an important step while starting your business. Make sure you choose a name that makes you feel connected to your brand to avoid further regrets.
You should also take ideas from your business products, your business motto, friends and families.
But deciding a name is only the first step that will help you get a good start. In the long run, your customer services, product qualities and business strategies will help you grow your business.
Note: This post contains affiliate link, which if you use will earn some commission to me while you loose nothing.
