Choosing a Name for Your Business: Rules and Common Mistakes

Are you looking for a business name? Chances are, you are in a tough spot. But fret not, you’re not alone.

Choosing a name for your business can be difficult and stressful. You need to pick a name that will not only last but will stand for the qualities and values of your company.

Usually, people ask their friends and family to help brainstorm a list of business names. However, more often than not they end up with mixed results that fail to capture the essence of their project.

Another popular option is to hire a branding agency. The professionals will ask you about your company’s goals and mission, as well as other pertinent questions in order to suggest viable names and help you set the foundation of your brand identity. And yet, although they may suggest a myriad of flashy names, a third-party may not be able to come up with one that suits you, as they don’t know you and may not understand you well enough.

So how to find the needle in the haystack and choose the best name for your business success?

In this article, we’ll introduce you to the golden rules of picking a name for your business, and list some of the most common mistakes to avoid. Read on to learn more!

Quick Tips to Choose Your Business Name

Before we delve deeper into the mechanics of choosing a name for your business, let’s have a look at a few quick tips. These will help you get into the proper mindset and make it easier for you in the next steps of the process:

• Pick a name that evokes an emotional response and is relatable.
• Research your target audience in order to coin a business name that may appeal to it.
• Keep your name short, easy-to-spell, and concise.
• Stay away from business names that are confusing.
• Make sure that there aren’t any organizations with the same or similar name.
• Research domain availability for your potential business website (and make sure that .com is available).
• Avoid adorable jokes that only you understand.
• Once you pick a name for your business, purchase the pertinent domain names with the most popular extensions, even if you intend to use only one.

Top 5 Rules to Choosing a Name for Your Business

Now let’s focus on the golden rules of choosing a name for your business. Following those in your creative process will allow you to narrow your list down to the best names that will have the greatest positive impact on your company’s development.

Furthermore, even if you already have a few names that you love but don’t quite sound right, you can use these guidelines to adjust them.

1. Evoke a Positive Connotation

When choosing a name for your business, you have to focus on words that have a positive meaning and are, at the same time, relatable to your audience. The name should be pertinent to your business’s personality and the type of customer you’d like to attract.

This means that when a prospect sees your company name amongst a list of others that offer similar products and services, they need to instantly recognize you as their first choice.

To make this possible, first, you have to understand your audience and figure out not only their needs but their overall attitude towards life and business and what they are looking for in a brand.

For example, if you are starting a transport business, you do not need it to have a bland sounding or forgettable name, such as “Criss Cross Trucking” or “Cat Transport”. You need a business name that implies quality, stability, and reliability.

Going for the name, let’s say, “Stone Creek Transport” would be a vast improvement, because it has connotations of something both solid and persistent. For the customer, this name creates a feeling that you will deliver results and do a good job under any circumstances.

2. Opt for Hassle-Free and Memorable Spelling

Clearly, your potential clients and customers should be able to easily recall your business name. Furthermore, they should be able to spell it without a second thought so they can find you online on your website and social media profiles.

If your name is too complicated or your online branding is not consistent, this will make it difficult for clients to learn more about you and contact you.

This means that when picking a name for your business, you should not only think of how it sounds and what it means but how you will position your brand in the digital world. For example, if you’ve decided on a name but find out that it’s already taken, changing the spelling to make it interesting might not do it for you. It will both confuse your customers and make it difficult to rank for branded keywords.

Furthermore, if your name is too weird and doesn’t make sense to people, they will find it difficult to remember how to spell it, and search engines will not be able to deliver relevant results.

So picking a business name such as, for example, “Psollyuncry” might be a terrible idea.

If you want to choose a unique name for your company, that’s great – it can, potentially, grab the customer’s attention, and make your brand more memorable. However, just keep in mind that troublesome spellings won’t work in your favor, so it’s best to try to figure out other ways to stand out. . For example, you can consider some smart wordplay or interesting phrasing combinations.

3. Make It Easy to Picture

What popped into your mind when you read “Psollyuncry” in the example above? Anything? It’s a safe bet that nothing came to mind, because you were unable to attach a mental image to the word.

For the most part, we are hard-wired to “see” pictures when we read or hear things, and adding a visual component into your business name can seal it in the memory of your customers.

Visual memory is a powerful tool in marketing or advertising. When your brand name allows people to recall images of objects and/or places, it’s easier for them to create strong connotations and remember you.

It also provides for creating a great logo that, combined with your business name, will make a long-lasting impression on people.

4. Stay Relevant to Your Business

Most businesses operate in a certain niche and industry. Staying relevant to your services, goals, and mission when choosing your business name makes it possible to provide the most information about yourself to your clients with the least effort. .

In a nutshell, you should make sure that your business name gives your potential clients an idea of what you really do. This way you will avoid confusion and make sure that when they end up at your door (be it digital or brick-and-mortar) people will know if your business is what they are looking for.

That’s why you see so many hair styling businesses that incorporate words such as “salon” or “hair styles” in their names.

Adding such information to the name of your business also makes it simpler for potential clients and customers to find you online as it provides additional context to search engine algorithms. This way, even if your company’s name is not completely unique, Google will be able to show your website and social media profiles in relevant search result pages.

5. Keep It Short and Sweet

Customers should be able to remember the name of your business! And when it comes to memorizing things, short forms always beat longer ones.

Furthermore, your name’s length is imperative for promotional purposes. You need a business name that fits and shows well on a business card, looks great on a sign or in an advertisement, and makes for awesome brand swag.

Needless to mention that short and simple domains are far easier to remember and search online.

So, whatever name you choose, keep it short and sweet!

Common Business Name Mistakes

To further help you in your quest for picking the best name for your company, we’ve listed the top business name mistakes to avoid:

• Lack of self-awareness. The organization does not understand that their name is a poor choice. They do not take into account feedback about their name and stick to it regardless of brand awareness issues and low online visibility. This mistake can be caused by unclear understanding of the business goals, ethics, and mission.
• Lack of constancy. The company may use name variations in different campaigns and online channels, and thus be unable to maintain brand consistency. Similar issues can be caused by rebranding that was not well-planned and/or properly implemented.

• Lack of attention to detail. When the naming process was rushed and not given the due time and consideration, it can result in choosing a business name that doesn’t fit the company properly and fails to resonate with the audience. Absence of attention to detail: They did not consider that the organization’s naming procedure was important.

Aside from these three general mistakes, there are seven smaller mistakes that can add up to unsatisfying results:

1. Treating naming as an afterthought.
2. Forgetting that naming is as strategic as it is creative.
3. Underestimating the importance of a good creative brief.
4. Confusing the need for information with the need for differentiation.
5. Overlooking trademark issues.
6. Ignoring global implications.
7. Making it emotional.

Bottom Line

Choosing a name for your business is an important part of your company’s development and may even become the reason you make it or break it.

While it may not be easy to come up with a catchy name that manages to both capture the essence of your business and help you stand out, following the tips in this article will enable you to focus on the creative process, rather than be stuck in brainstorming.

You can also check out some business name generator tools online to get some ideas for your name. You can use them as a starting point to get your creative mind going, or just use the name they provide immediately.

Regardless of whether you are a startup picking their name for the first time or an established business looking to rebrand, you shouldn’t allow a poorly chosen name to stand between you and success.