It’s no longer news that before deciding on the best name for your business, you should have a deep understanding of the type of name you want.
But what if you have no idea where to begin? What if you can’t think of a catchy name? What if you can’t seem to light your creative candle?
We know firsthand that naming can be frustrating for new entrepreneurs, so we’ve decided to put together this simple naming guide based on what we’ve discovered from crowdsourcing company names for over 35,000 entrepreneurs and helping them discover distinctive brand names for their businesses.
Let’s get down to it.
Four Critical Steps to Selecting the Best Business Name
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Specify Your Brand
The name of your brand is the most significant aspect of it, as it describes it in a few words. Therefore, recognizing your brand is unavoidable while naming your company. Your business is what you do, while your brand is how you want to be viewed.
Let’s consider Accenture, the consulting firm. What enters your mind when you see, read, or hear the name? For one, it has a refined, modern, and high-end tone to it. This works really well for one of the world’s leading consulting firms.
However, you wouldn’t be able to name a typical digital device like the Alexa or iPhone the same way. The name would be improper for their identity or what they are attempting to accomplish.
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Consider Various Name Ideas
This is the fun part! Gather your group (if you have one at this stage), get some markers, notebooks, and a whiteboard, and go wild! Keep in mind that the brainstorming stage is not the analytical stage. You do not need to evaluate names at this time. Simply open your creative pathways and let the creative juices flow.
Don’t be afraid to write down terrible names. In fact, we highly urge you to note names that make you uneasy. You never know what you could create from them. Here are some simple tools to aid you with the naming process:
- Thesaurus
- Visual names, often with a color component
- Industry jargons
- Rhyming words
Furthermore, involving individuals of diverse ages in your brainstorming process is essential since they have different views on creative vs. traditional names.
In a 2021 poll, we noticed that younger age groups—25–34-year-olds—favored fun, imaginative, and modern brand names, whereas 45–65-year-olds trusted classic and trustworthy company names more. The 35-45 age group was in between. As a result, having people of various ages allows you to weigh their unique points of view.
Even if you end up with 200 potential names at the end of the brainstorming session, that’s great since the next step involves working on narrowing this list.
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Legitimize
We all believe that your top choice from the possibilities shown is the excellent business name you’ve been looking for! However, before you can rejoice, you must first pass a few important tests. The legitimization process would help you figure out whether your ideal business name(s) is viable and available.
So ensure you get:
- Audience feedback: Customer feedback is critical when it comes to authenticating your business name. And you can do this by collecting honest reviews about your chosen brand name from friends, family, or even regular strangers you meet at a bar or cafe. Don’t be shy to tell them why you need their input.
- A Solid Website: A great website is generally required for every business. As a result, you must check to see if your preferred domain name is still available. In a perfect world, you would quickly get access to the nameofyourbusiness.com. But this is hardly the case, and you may have to pay a premium for it.
- Trademarks: You may dislike this procedure, but it might save you a lot of trouble later on. Most current words are already trademarked in some way. You must assess if your company’s name meets the trademark criteria. Feel free to seek advice from a legal practitioner at this stage. Failure to register a trademark might result in future cease and desist letters.
Conclusion
Brand names can raise sales and grow your brand’s financial performance; therefore, they can be the game changers your business needs to outperform its competitors. Getting a brand name that resonates with your business’s identity is an excellent tool for triggering excitement in your target customers.
Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies.