How to Come up With a Business Name: Using All Inspiration Available

Entrepreneurs invest a lot of time researching and validating business ideas – rightfully so. If you don’t have a good idea or a good enough idea, you won’t be able to take it very far. You want the ideas that you put out there to be great and leave a good impression on those who see them, helping you to pave a way for yourself in the business industry. In addition, more than ever, business owners also understand the importance of developing quality brands. You want to provide an item worth selling. To fill a need and make a difference. These are all wonderful goals.

Just as with the ideas and quality brands, a lot of time is spent on developing the perfect logo but all too often the process of coming up with a business name is an afterthought. While the logo is very important, the business name is just as important. The business name will be right beside that logo icon, representing your company and all your hard work. The business name will be on all your paperwork for consumers and for you. You want it to look good, to stand out, and to be something that you are proud of. That’s why we are here to help.

This post covers a few methods and tools to come up with a great name for your web start-up or small business. This is not a complete and final list for coming up with your name, but it can get you pointed in the right direction at the very least. At the most, you will soon be able to create your great new name. With that business name in a place that truly reflects your vision and business’ personality, you can start designing the perfect logo with our logo maker.

Old-Fashioned Brainstorm

Technology is wonderful but sometimes grabbing a pen and notepad can be most effective. This is an exercise that should be done first and will help get your creative juices flowing. Not only will it help come up with lots of different names but will help you envision your logo design as you write out the name on paper. Doing this is a great way to learn how to think of a business name. This is the first step in how to come up with a business name. As ideas and thoughts pop into your head, write them down immediately. If you want to expand upon an idea, do so. If not, move on and just keep writing things down. The direct pen to paper is typically the fastest way to get ideas out of your head, other than speaking them. If you are having a hard time writing down your ideas fast enough, you can always use shorthand, leaving abbreviations and notes for yourself. If that is still not working, you can always sound record your ideas as you speak them out loud.

During this part of coming up with a name, don’t work about editing or thinking too hard about any of your ideas after you have written them down. This is simply to get some of your small business name ideas in place. It is the starting ground for having something to work with. By taking this first step to getting ideas down, you are setting the stage for your final product. As you go through your thoughts later, you may find that you might not be able to use any of them for various reasons. Don’t let this get you down. Even if all of them have to be scrapped, it’s better that you wrote stuff down and got yourself thinking about it. For now, though, don’t stress. We are going to keep coming up with new ideas to add to your list. Editing those names will come later. For now, give yourself some grace.

Study Industry and Competitor Logos

What kind of business names and slogans are your competitors using in their logos? Are they short, bold, detailed, trendy? Are they longer and more classic? Do they relate to their product or are the names totally different? Do they incorporate the names of people in them?

Studying your competitors can help you come up with some ideas of your own. This is the second step in how to come up with a business name. As you look at your competitors, one thing is for certain, don’t take the famous “Good artists copy, great artists steal” quote too literally. You want your logo to have a unique name and look and not be caught up in litigation. But make sure to take note of which competitor names you like, respect, and admire. Are you wanting a name that is similar to that? Also, take notice of the names that you absolutely dislike. What about it don’t you like? Knowing this information can help you add the characteristics that you like into your own logo and avoid the characteristics that you don’t like.

There are nearly endless options when it comes to creating a company name. You can use a name for your brand. Examples of this are McDonald’s, Barbie, or Dick’s Sporting Goods. Other names describe the service or product such as Bass Pro Shop, Walmart, Wholefoods, Save a Lot, or Dunkin Donuts. Some companies use words that have nothing to do with them such as Target, Ruler, or Kayak. Some brands even took or made-up words that didn’t mean anything and used that. Examples of this are Xerox, Sony, Pantone, Google, and Ikea. Then there are companies that use acronyms as their brand name. INTERPOL is International Crime Police Organization, NASA is National Aeronautics and Space Administration, AT&T is American Telephone and Telegraph Company, GEICO is Government Employees Insurance Company, and NERF is Non-Expandable Recreational Foam. These business names are just scratching the surface. There is an endless amount of new ideas and new names launching every minute. It can be hard to have something completely unique that can help you stand out but you can do it. Make a plan for what kind of name you want to have and start working towards it. A made-up word? Two descriptor words? One word? An acronym? The sky is the limit for the name that you choose.

Almost all business names end up getting trademarked or copyrighted by the company that claims them. Using someone else’s name would not be a good thing in this case because you don’t have the legal right to do so. So, how do you know if something is taken? Once you have some brand name ideas written down after looking at other businesses, you can use a search engine to see if those names that you came up with are already taken. This is just a part of learning how to come up with business names. Once a name is taken, it is likely that URLs for websites will be unavailable as well as social media handles. Having a unique and original name will allow you to secure all the social media handles and a website URL. One thing to keep in mind, once you have decided on a name is to start moving forward with it. It is great if you write down an amazing name, but if you don’t use it, someone else might come up with it and take over your opportunity, ruining all the hard work that you did. So, take your time coming up with a name, but once you decide on something, start getting to work.

Enlist the Help of the Creative Masses

If you are struggling to come up with a name on your own you can always turn to one of the crowdsourcing platforms. The power of the masses would certainly provide some new perspectives and ideas. They can come up with some creative shop name ideas or they can come up with something that sparks your imagination. These sites typically charge a fee to post a business naming contest, however.

Some people that you can talk to who will be much cheaper are the people you know. People together, talking through things and looking at ideas, are sometimes able to come up with some good things such as catchy business names, cute business names, and creative business names. Definitely, be talking to the people that you are making a company with. You are in this project together and should work as a team. If it is just you, you can talk to your trusted friends and family to see if they have any ideas or if they can build off of yours. This is the third step for how to come up with a business name.

Business Name Generators

If you are still having trouble coming up with ideas for names, there is one other thing that you can try. There are a lot of free tools available to automatically generate business names. You can either define the root of the name or let the software generate a completely random name. These tools can be fun and get you one step closer to deciding on a great name. This is a great way to come up with random ideas for business names. You can always take what the generator comes up with and let that inspire you. While the name generators might not yet connect dots as well as humans do, they could come up with something different enough that just might work. They aren’t limited by opinions and history the way that humans are. This gives them an advantage when creating content. If a business name generator comes up with something good, take the idea and go with it. There are lots of tools available but LOGO.com’s Ai Name Generator and RenderForest’s business name generator are standouts. It is really easy-to-use and gives you a full brand to go with your name.

Editing Company Name Ideas

Once you have a whole lot of ideas written down from your many different sources, you can start editing them. This is the fourth step in how to come up with a business name. As mentioned before, make sure that none of them are already taken by a different company. Just doing searches of the name is a good way to discover this. You can also see if any social media handles or URLs are already taken. Last, make sure that your name doesn’t mean something unintentionally. There are many random phrases that hold double meanings. Make sure that you are not using one on accident. A search with a search engine should provide this information easily. Once you have crossed any unavailable names off your list, you can see if any of them don’t really fit what you are wanting your name to represent. This is the time to get picky about the names because this is the editing stage where you look at all of your ideas through a very critical lens. Delete and cross out any names that you really don’t like or don’t believe in. You need to love your name and be really happy with it. If you don’t then it probably isn’t the name for you.

Once you have your ideas narrowed down to just a few, you can start messing with them. Type them up and print them in a few different ways. Your company name is something that you will see a whole lot of. From promotional material to paperwork, to general advertising. You want to make sure it is something that you absolutely love. The fifth and final step of how to come up with a business name is to choose your name from your list of ideal options. Although this can be one of the hardest steps, it can also feel really great if you are happy and satisfied with your decision.

Now you know not just how to come up with a business name but how to come up with a good business name. Once you have taken the time to come up with a fitting and catchy name the fun really begins. Use our free logo maker to design unlimited design concepts. Carefully compare the mockups and then choose the most suitable logo for your exciting project.

GraphicSprings Branding Solution

Our logo maker GraphicSprings provides an easy-to-use and affordable option to the traditional logo-making programs. With traditional options, you would have to spend a lot of money on a fancy program and then spend money on a book or classes for that program in order to know how to use it. This whole process can take quite some time before you have a logo in your hands. GraphicSprings has an easier answer. In three simple steps, you can have your very own logo simply with the use of the internet and some time. You only pay if you want to download your creation. Our payment system is very affordable based on what you need.

All that time you spent coming up with business names finally comes into play. The first step is to enter your amazing business name. If you still haven’t narrowed down your final few, don’t worry. You can enter one in and edit it later if you don’t like it. The next step is to go through our large library of logo icons and choose one for yourself. We have them all broken down into categories that you can look through or you can use our search tool to find something more directly. The last step is to edit it all together.

GraphicSprings provides a great editing platform, and all you need is access to the internet. You can change the words, font, colors, size, shapes, orientation, and so much more of your logo. Take as much time as you need during this process. At this point, if you are still deciding between business names, you can try them out here. One logo design might go better with one name more than the other. This can help be a determining point.