“11% of consumers will not use a company if they don’t like the name? Yet 26% of businesses select the first name they think of.” - Business Opportunities & Ideas
I’ve spent hours agonizing over names for a number of business I’m involved in. I mentioned yesterday that a bad business name immediately makes branding more difficult; as it is branding which will help people find and remember your business, that’s a serious mistake to make. Below is a list of the articles that I return to time and again when I have to come up with a name. It doesn’t matter if you’re naming your cosy coffee shop or an online community aimed at millions, these articles will help make sure you don’t stumble at the business naming hurdle.
- The Art of Self Branding is a series of articles and presentations by Lea Alcantara of LeaLea Designs, a successful web designer and maker of ‘creative solutions’. She focuses on branding yourself as an individual and freelancer but her process of breaking down exactly what you want your name and brand to convey will help even larger scale operations.
- Name Creation at The Branding Blog offers 68 tips (and rising) for naming your business. There’s a heck of a lot of advice in there from a branding expert so it’s worth reading them all as the posts are all short and to the point.
- Choosing a Niche and Choosing a Domain Name have some excellent ideas. Have you tried using Google adwords’ search functions to help you with finding words and phrases relevant to your business? It could really help get the brainstorming going. And don’t let the title fool you; some of the advice is equally important when choosing any sort of business name - online or off, community or otherwise.
- How to Name Your Company offers a step by step process for naming your business. Michael gives several tips that I haven’t seen suggested elsewhere including to use a crossword puzzle dictionary which lists words by length!
- Building the Perfect Beast: The Igor Naming Guide to Creating Product and Company Names is a free PDF download from a company who name things for a living. It’s long, it’s detailed and it’s not for the faint-hearted but it is pretty much the definitive guide to naming anything (except children and pets…unless you’re inclined to brand and market your babies). If you want the short version, Startup Spark has a minimalistic breakdown of Igor’s key points.
Got any favourite resources or tips to share? Let me know!
