Giving your business baby a name can be a super fun process and once you land on THE name, things really start to feel real. You want to be thoughtful in this process though and be careful to not pick a name that you might not ultimately serve your big idea and long-term goals. Changing a business name is not as fun and can be costly and time consuming (think paying for a new URL, logo, combing every page of your content to make sure the new name is in there...bleh. I know because I've done it.) You have dreams to conquer and have no time for such nonsense.
Through the process of naming my own businesses and helping others choose a name, I have learned some things one should think about when choosing a name. Here are a few:
CHOOSE A NAME YOU CAN GROW INTO
When my business partner and I named our wellness business in 2010, we took the well-meaning advice of one of our clients who said "You HAVE to put 'massage' in the name or people will just be confused about what you do and won't call." On one hand this WAS a good piece of advice. Massage was definitely our primary source of revenue at the time, but our goal was to become an integrated health care center where we offered a variety of wellness services like acupuncture and yoga. Over the years we were successful building those services but found ourselves in a situation where a lot of people assumed we were "just a massage place" because of the "massage" in the name (Well Within - Massage and Integrated Health.) Years later we dropped the "Massage and Integrated Health" and were simply "Well Within" which beautifully encompasses all that Well Within is and provides a lot of flexibility to add new services or eliminate ones that no longer serve our client’s needs.
When choosing a name for your business, imagine your business 5, 10, 20 years out. Will it serve future evolutions of your business as it grows, and you grow? Does it leave you some flexibility to pivot in a different direction if you choose to do so down the road? Does it serve a hyperlocal niche or will you, perhaps, want it to serve a different or larger geographical audience?
USING YOUR NAME (OR NOT...)
If you KNOW you always plan to be a one wo(man) operation and you plan to be the face of the business, then using your own name as a business name can be very impactful. It can create trust with potential clients, can help with SEO (better than a more common name) and can be easily available (What are the chances that [yourname].com is already taken?)
However, naming your business after yourself may not always be the best idea. If you think there is a chance that someday you might want to sell your business, using your name would make it much more difficult for someone else to carry on the business's work hence reducing the potential value for a sale.
You might also want to build a team and delegate operations over time. Using your name could create a situation where clients want to work only with "the name" of the business because they want the very best and they think that means working directly with you. Of course, you will have built an exceptional team who can carry out your work to the highest of standards, but your clients will still want YOU.
A NAME FOR YOUR CLIENTS
Most decisions you make for your business should pass the "Is this for my clients/customers?" test. Sometimes it can be easy to make decisions that are really more for US (and maybe our egos a little bit) than for the people we want to serve. Consider choosing a name that conveys a benefit for your ideal clients. It will pay off for you in the end (and your ego is gonna LOVE that even more!) Avoid industry jargon, whacky spellings, words in a language that is likely foreign to your potential customers or literally anything you may have to explain.
CONSIDER THE INEVITABLE ACRONYM. I MEAN... SERIOUSLY... WORTH A THOUGHT.
There are many other things you can (and should) think about when naming your business. A site I love on the topic is Eat My Words (speaking of great names!) They have something called the SMILE & SCRATCH test:
SMILE: THE 5 QUALITIES OF A SUPER-STICKY NAME
• Suggestive—evokes something about your brand
• Memorable—makes an association with the familiar
• Imagery—aids memory through evocative visuals
• Legs—lends itself to a theme for extended mileage
• Emotional—moves people
SCRATCH: THE 7 DEAL BREAKERS
• Spelling-challenged—looks like a typo
• Copycat—resembles competitors’ names
• Restrictive—limits future growth
• Annoying—seems forced, frustrates customers
• Tame—feels flat, descriptive, uninspired
• Curse of Knowledge—speaks only to insiders
• Hard-to-pronounce—confuses and distances customers
They also have a free name evaluation test where you can test the strength of your business name before you go all in on it. It’s cool! Once you think you may have landed on The One, run it through the paces here: https://eatmywords.com/free-name-evaluation-test/