Your business name is the face of your brand, the foot you put forward into the marketplace. It’s the quickest way to connect with your customers and create a relationship. Choosing a business name that helps your brand stand out is one of the toughest and most important stages in starting a business. It’s the moment when your vision gains a life of its own.
We’ll walk you through the main hurdles and milestones of choosing and claiming your business name and a unique and recognizable brand identity. Allow yourself plenty of time, ideally a few weeks, to come up with the best name for you.
Brainstorming
During the brainstorming stage, you want to come up with as many ideas as you can. Get out a blank sheet of paper or a clean Word document and record every possible name you can think of: the good, the bad, the cheesy, the impossible, everything! Review those ideas and let them spur you on to even more possibilities.
By the end of this exercise, you should have dozens of possible names that may or may not work for your business. After this initial flurry, keep revisiting the list over the next few days, noting why certain names won’t work, adding new ideas, and letting the names continue to flow.
Stuck or don’t know where to start? Here are some approaches that can spark your creativity:
Your Name
Many entrepreneurs and creatives use their personal name as their business name, including realtors, fashion designers, and lawyers. But before committing, make sure you’re confident in your ability to maintain good boundaries between your real life and your business identity.
Your Geographical Location
In Austin, TX? Austin or Texas could be worked into your name, or maybe Capital City. If you’re going for a broader appeal, Travis County, Hill Country, or Central Texas could work. If you keep stretching, maybe you can include broader local identities like Lone Star, Heart of Texas, and El Norte.
What You Do
Are you a towing service? An interior designer? A realtor? Not every business includes the exact services or products they provide in their name—it’s more common in some industries than others. This is a good time to consider what your competition includes with their name.
Industry Keywords
Think of every word a customer or client could use to search for your business online. What products and services are you hoping to be associated with? Write down everything, from the most mundane generalizations to insider industry lingo.
Values and Ideals
What values and emotions do you want customers to associate with your brand? Your list can include words like trustworthy, innovation, natural, on-call, luxury. For example, the name Best Buy doesn’t actually describe what the company sells, but it does indicate that you’ll get the best price for it.
Vibes
You know what we mean. These are a little deeper than values and ideals, more abstract, and more melodic. Capri Sun. Sunkist. Ocean Spray. Crystal Geyser. None of these brand names have any direct relation to the fruity beverages they represent, but they do make you think of something natural and refreshing.
Made Up Words
Go one step further and combine any of the words on your page so far into a new word, or make up words that just sound interesting or evocative. The word Oreo doesn’t really mean anything. Google is a word that sounds like the numeric value googol, which just means “a lot.” Snapple is “snap” and “apple” mashed together. Acura is a made-up word that sounds like “accurate.”
Still stuck? You might find luck with a thesaurus, or with words that you like in a foreign language. Or, if you have an idea for a logo, consider what words would look good in it (think about how iconic Coca-Cola’s logo is).
What to Avoid and Watch Out For
Now take a look at your list and start really considering which ideas won’t make the cut. You’ll want to take a good long look at who your ideal customer is, what they can be expected to know, and where they will be seeing your advertising. A lot of business is spread via word of mouth, radio ads, and quick visual ads (like billboards, merch, and television commercials), so here are some things to watch out for as you assemble your shortlist:
- Avoid a name that is too long, is hard to pronounce, or is hard to spell. This includes umlauts, characters from another alphabet, and regular words with unfamiliar spellings. You want a name that people can hear or see briefly and remember until they get home to look you up. An honorable mention goes out to acronyms, which can hard to remember if you don’t know what the letters stand for.
- Be extra careful with slang and words that are overly trendy. There are two sides to this. On the one hand, if you are trying to capitalize on a current trend, you want to think about whether your brand will feel woefully dated in a few years’ time. On the other hand, you want to make sure that you aren’t accidentally using a slang word with negative connotations. We suggest checking the dictionary, and even UrbanDictionary.com, to check any associations you might not be aware of.
- Make sure your name isn’t too restrictive. Consider how you might grow in the future, and don’t choose something that won’t let your business be flexible as it grows. Amazon’s success might have been different if Jeff Bezos had named his company something related strictly to bookselling. If you have aspirations to edge into the Cincinnati towing market in a few years, the name Cleveland Towing Services may not be best for you.
Now, we know that there are plenty of successful businesses with quirky spellings (Lyft), acronyms (IBM), and long names (American Eagle Outfitters). Just understand what your audience can be expected to be familiar with, and make sure they’ll be able to find you online and recommend you to their friends.
The Test Drive
At this point, develop a short list of possible names for your business and take them out for a test drive. Think about what names are still exciting you a few days later. Speak them out loud, imagine them in print, and consider whether you’ll be tired of the name in 10 years. In particular, you’ll want to search for your name on the web to see if it’s available and you’ll want to try the name out on family, friends, and colleagues.
Make Sure the Name is Available
You don’t want to risk running up against infringement and copyright laws, and you don’t want to spend time test-driving a name that you can’t ultimately use. Check each of the following resources to make sure that your name isn’t already claimed by another business.
- Check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This resource will show you current and expired trademarked names, as well as what industries or fields they are being used in.
- Search the internet and social media. Check to see if someone is already using the domain name you wanted, or if the business name is taken on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
- Conduct a free business name search. Usually, your Secretary of State will have a search tool on their website that will tell you if your potential business name is already registered.
Talk to People
Talk to people whose opinions you value. Whether this is friends, family, or a business partner, it’s a good idea to understand the impression your business name has on others. Ask the following questions:
- Can they spell, pronounce, and remember the name if you ask them about it again an hour later?
- What impressions, feelings, or associations does the name evoke?
- Does the name sound too much like a competitor’s name?
- Could the name have any negative interpretations or connotations?
- Can they guess what your business does just from you telling them the name?
There may be some surprising answers, and your focus group may even have some inspiring suggestions of their own. The hope is, that after this exercise is complete, you’ll have one or two really solid choices to move forward with.
The Commitment
If you have your name, you’ve made sure it’s available, and you’ve given it a test drive with your buddies, then it’s time to commit. Even if you aren’t ready to immediately start doing business or to push your website live, staking your claim now will ensure that you don’t have to start back at step one if someone else has the same great idea in the meantime.
Register With the State
One mandatory step for forming a recognized business is to register your business with your state. Registering a business tells the state who you are, lets them know how to contact you, and gives you (and no one else!) the legal right to do business under that name.
If you aren’t ready to fully form your business quite yet, you can still reserve a business name in the meantime so no one else can use it. This can be done with your Secretary of State and generally reserves the name for 30-90 days.
Additionally, the name that you do day-to-day business under doesn’t have to be the same as your official, state-registered business name. For example, if you registered your business as Austin Towing Services, and wanted to expand into more cities, you could file a DBA, or “Doing Business As” for Lone Star Towing Services.
Purchase a Domain Name
Choosing a domain name can be its own endeavor, especially if your first choice is taken. DotCom domains are, of course, popular and traditional, but there are hundreds of available top-level domains (TLDs) to choose from and make your business stand out.
Use our domain name search tool to see if the domain name you want is available and get it registered as soon as possible, even if you aren’t ready to get your website fully online yet.
Don’t worry about getting your domain name to match your business name exactly. You can add specificity or variation to your business name to get a name locked down. Just get close enough that your customers will understand the association.
Claim Your Social Media Handles
Wherever you hope to advertise on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), check that a handle involving your business name is available and claim them right then and there. Better to claim a handle you don’t end up using than miss a good opportunity.
Trademark Your Name
It isn’t totally necessary to trademark your business name, but doing so will give you the sole right to use that name and can avoid any future legal questions. You can file for a trademark at the USPTO website.
Build Your Online Presence with Epik
Once you have your business name chosen, you’re ready to get your venture online! If you haven’t already, register your domain name with Epik to ensure domain name security and privacy. We offer automatic renewals so you can rest assured you won’t lose your domain. Epik also offers web hosting and secure email for your business—everything you need to online and hit the ground running.