What Should I Name My Business?

Naming a new business.

It scares a lot of people.

Do I make it descriptive?

Do I make it nonsensical?

Do I name it after myself or city/state?

There are a lot of different ways to go about it.

And there’s no one right way.

There are no “rules”.

There aren’t even any guidelines.

Your company doesn’t even have to match your brand(s).

Look at Pat Flynn--his company isn’t named after any of his sites.

And Google–that’s just a made-up word.

A business name may be inspired by a friend or family member.

It can come from a favorite saying.

It can be a totally made-up word like the aforementioned Google.

There are even business name generators that allow you to input a name you want a business to include or the nature of the business, and the program will return a bunch of business names for your selection.

Sidenote: I wouldn’t rely on any of those.

What you name a business isn’t likely to make or break it on its own, but there are definitely advantages to taking the time to really put some thought into it.

So what should you consider when naming a business?

A Special Word On Your Target Market

I see a LOT of something that really annoys me.

It’s posting to Facebook groups and it goes something like this:

Hey guys! I just set up my business and created a website and social media…now who should I go after as clients?

Who should you go after as clients!?

That should have been considered before even coming up with your business name and branding.

Think about it for a second:

If your business’ name sounds like it’s for a specific group, do you think others outside that group would want to work with you?

Take my accounting business AccountLancer as an example.

Do you think I came up with a cute, catchy name without giving thought to who I would market to first?

Do you think I set up my web presence without taking into consideration those with whom I wanted to work?

Of course not.

I made a concerted effort to ensure that everything was aligned.

Before getting started.

Why?

Because it would seem odd if I contact a fortune 500 company as the owner of a business called “accounting for freelancers”.

They would probably never even take a call or send my email right to the trash because my brand was so misaligned with my choice of the target client.

This is probably the biggest thing you need to consider when considering a name for your new business without a doubt.

The Family Business

If you are starting a business in order to be a family legacy, then sometimes the best name is the family name.

Think of the Ford Motor Company or P.C. Richard & Son, two companies started in the early 1900s.

If you look at the histories of the companies, Fords and Richards have been in key company positions since the beginning.

In situations like these, it just works.

You know that (mostly) family members will be the key players in the company for generations, and the family business will stay within the family.

If your goals are to keep things small and aren’t too worried about expansion, you can use your personal name as many professional service businesses do (attorneys, accountants, doctors).

This gives the feeling of trust but it can also limit the scope of the business’ activities as well as the ability to sell it later on.

A company called Michael Peterson Photography can’t easily expand into other areas such as web design or video production very easily without undergoing a name change or a large marketing campaign.

The same holds true for the expansion or sale of a business that is self-named.

It may be difficult to get people to buy into Mary Lane Jewelers when only one person’s name is on the masthead or to find people interested in buying the company when they know they will have to undergo an expensive re-branding after the purchase.

Location, Location, Location

If you are planning to run a location-specific company, then naming the company after the city or the street where the business will physically be located may make lots of sense.

If, however, you plan to operate and market your business outside of your home area, choosing a location-specific name may not be the way to go about naming your business.

People outside, or unfamiliar with that general area may not make a connection.

A good example would be someone in Phoenix looking for and finding a marketing firm called Windy City Creative (The Windy City being Chicago) and automatically skipping over that business assuming it wouldn’t understand the local market conditions.

Now, that may not always be the case, but you only have a split second to make an impression sometimes, and in this instance, it turned out to be negative.

Creative or Descriptive Business Names

Odds are, whatever industry you enter with your new business will already have plenty of competition.

While using your own, or your family’s name for a business may be right in some instances, other times, you may want to set yourself apart by getting a little more creative.

In this case, using a name that is more descriptive of the industry may work better.

There are a ton of companies using “AAA”, “Best”, “5-Star”, and “Premier” in their names in every industry.

In reality, anyone can name a business whatever they want, so getting into the psychology of business names may not even help.

Sometimes it helps to get creative.

Take my freelancer-targeted accounting company, AccountLancer, for example.

It would be easy to go to the thesaurus and look up synonyms for words like best, top, premium, etc. but I didn’t want to fall into that trap.

There are already way too many people who used that approach to name their business and wanted to do something different.

With so many businesses in the areas of accounting, taxation, and business consulting I wanted to come up with something that stood out but was also pretty descriptive of what the company did.

From the feedback I’ve received, the name tested really well, and I’ve received many compliments on achieving the balance of description and creativity which is was what I set out to accomplish.

Can you even use that name for your business?

Intellectual property rights aren’t something that many people consider at all, much less when it comes to naming their business.

If someone has a trademark on a word or phrase, you are not permitted to use that word/phrase in the same space that the trademark protects.

If you don’t do your due diligence, you may not only have to spend a lot of time and money re-branding and re-marketing your business but you may also be sued.

Another thing people fail to consider is whether the exact name or something very similar is in use by another business.

Because business names are mostly regulated within state boundaries (unless there is a trademark on the name), you may settle on a name for your business only to come across another company with the same name in a different state.

That can get very confusing for potential customers, especially if you end up marketing your business in the same place as the other company, and legal issues may even arise from it.

Online Branding: Domain name & social media availability

It only makes sense that you want to be able to establish an online business presence. After all, everything is shifting online anyway, right?

Regardless of your feelings regarding technology, you want to make it difficult for people not to be able to find your business online.

And that means having a website and being on social media!

The drawback is that it also means you want to make sure that your business website and social media profiles all share similar names, or else you may confuse people.

(Not to mention the fact that social media for business makes it easier for you to cultivate relationships with customers.)

And that can prove a daunting task, considering all of the people who squat on domain names and social profile names (particularly Twitter).

But it is still something that should play a role on some level in naming your business.

Wrapping Up

There may not be a manual to follow when naming your new business, but you have something to think about now if you haven’t already.

This doesn’t only apply to new companies either–plenty of established businesses have undergone name changes, so yours can too if it can benefit from a re-brand and a fresh start.

It’s simply a matter of finding something that fits the image you want your brand to represent and will scale with you as you grow and/or expand in the future.

One common piece of advice is to purchase several alternate domain names like .net. .co, .org versions to insulate yourself. A new twist is to get the misspelled versions and similar names as well to give yourself added protection.

Head on over right now and register your domains at Namecheap before someone else does! You’ll even get a promo code when you use that link! Why use Namecheap? I find it better than the rest of the domain registrars (all my domains are housed there) and there is always a coupon for new domains!

Then get a Siteground hosting account and start building that online presence. I personally host my sites (this one included) at Siteground and love the near-perfect uptime and the support is great whenever I have a question.

Your Turn

How did you come up with the name of your site or business? Did you have a difficult time or was it a cinch? What ultimately helped you to decide?