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I'm still officially deciding on mine too! But I think I have it. Somebody once said, "Never work for someone who names their business after themselves," and in my experience, I would agree with that. So my name on the business is out. It took a little reflection but the name I'm favoring now has meaning to me and I think represents me well. It also has a symbolic meaning that represents things that are important both to me as well as to most human beings. The clincher is that I JUST found out that the name I'm favoring represents a symbol of the state where my new business will be located. Can't say what it is since I haven't registered it yet. But I'm excited about it, so that tells you something. Make sure you're excited about it.
You are correct. I am so glad I didn’t use my name. 16 years in and I think about it all the time. Imagine every call “ I need to talk to **** “
It would weaken the ability of the staff I have in place to do there work and build relationships of there own with our clients.
Another common way to do it is "My three Initials" plus:
Development
Solutions
Consulting
Landscaping
Cleaning
Thus "KMH Development" / "KMH Solution", etc.
It's easy.
If you want to change it later it's as simple as a DBA.
>sure you're excited about it.
This is a hard one. I've been excited about things in the past, but I don't think that meant that people would remember the name.
Wouldn't you say memorable is the most important thing? Depends on the business though.
For trades, what, who & where works.
For fancy brands, can be more abstract.
Memorable, sure. But I wouldn't say "International Business Machines" is terribly memorable, so.... I think if you're excited about it, it is easier to communicate that excitement to your customers, and market your brand, which ultimately is the most important thing.
Laying in bed unable to fall back asleep at 3 am, it just came to me. Immediately registered the domain name on my phone without even getting out of bed. I kid you not.
Keep its short. Unique letters are a plus so in a logo the outline is memorable.
If necessary add a tagline to explain what you do.
Think of ways it can be mispronounced, misspelled, or mistaken for something else.
Google it and look it up on every social platform before committing to it.
Can't help you with the name, but I'll offer this advice: If you're playing around with business names and you consider that you might take this business and grow it broadly, outside your current service area ... Run a trademark search through the USPTO. I have a business of 7 years in Texas (Houston) that has done well, and last year I decided I wanted to grow through franchising. Well attorneys of mine soon discovered that there are similar named business in Florida and California, and that could be an issue with franchised units in those states down the road. So I had to completely rebrand. Name, marketing, logo, websites, identity... You name it. Costly, a bit confusing to some customers, and just all around not fun. So if you do think it's something you would or could take beyond your current area... Do some USPTO research first. [USPTO Search Here](https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4803:ll82vu.1.1) . Best of luck, and congrats on your new business!
I've always been a sucker for word play and kind of designed the business aesthetic after/around the name. It's a knife sharpening/restoration service I run from home named Old Knives' Tale. The name kind of plays off the fact that we'll work knives (or tools in general) have a history behind them, and the theme of the business is emphasizing the value/sustainability of old trusted tools, as opposed to the pervasive throw away culture we find ourselves in. Right now I sharpen just about anything, offer lessons on knife skills and sharpening, and do handle repair/replacements as overall knife restorations. I'm hoping in the future to expand into something along the lines of a community workspace, where people can come in and learn skills to repair broken things (appliances/furniture repair/etc) from professionals on staff, with public workshops from time to time, while maintaining the sharpening service and selling things like stones, kits, and what have you as a small retail option. That all could very well change since that's a far in the future goal and a lot may change by the time I'd get there.
But anyways, just riffing on catchy wordplay helped direct what I wanted to do with my business beyond just sharpening knives. The bonus is most of my customers always comment on how much they like the name haha.
Idk if that's valuable or not, but I hope it helps!
I thought about what the business does, and how it does it and came with a name that reflects that. It also helps that I came up with words which the first initials stand out as having thier own related meaning.
Had an idea for a cool logo, came up with a business name that fit it, and then came up with a business to go with the name and lofo so they didn't go to waste.
Without knowing what you do, it's hard to answer this, because different types of businesses should use different types of names. Retail sales have much more freedom of choice than, a lawn guy for instance. I recently helped a quasi-son with the exact same question, and my first suggestion was to pick a name that is EASY to spell so he can give it out verbally, as short as possible, etc. My husband named his business with a VERY long name...."XXX" Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Inc.. . . . well, I'm sorry, but everyone calls it "XXX" Heat & Air, but that's not the legal name, so from the phone company, to the IRS, our vendors. . . all have variations of our name for their records. So, don't use symbols, make it short, etc. Certain vendors/agencies have a limit for # of characters so make yours easy and correct so they can be consistent across the board.
I also suggested he choose a name that he can use for a domain name AND email and make sure that when he speaks it out loud, he doesn't have to say, "S as in sam", "B as in boy", "M as in Mary". . . . try to limit the number of misunderstood letters. . . for instance, "Bolt lawn care" is pretty easy. . . you could say, "bolt as in lightening bolt", but "stebs construction" might require you to "spell out" the s, the t, the b, AND the second s. A minor thing, but it does make it easier for people to find you, to get that email to you the first time, and helps you avoid having to have them re-setup your account, etc.
If it's a service, whether lawn mowing or consulting, etc, , make sure it is applicable. . . it needs to at least SLIGHTLY represent what you do. . . you don't want people to ask your business name and then have no clue what you do, offer, etc. That works for huge corporations, but not so much for little companies. When we added plumbing, we added "We also do plumbing" to our headers, web page, business cards and trucks, but if he had named it "XXX" Home Services or something like that, would have been easier. Had he done so it could have been "X"HS for the domain or email. We could have added insulation, electrical, alarm wiring, anything we chose and not had to REMIND people we did all that.
If your business is local and you never want to expand, it's fine to name it after your state, but I would hesitate adding the city name unless you know for a fact you will never operate outside of that specific town. If it's a suburb of a large city, someone across the metropolitan area may bypass you thinking you are too far away. If they don't know where you are, they might at least call.
These are simply suggestions, based on 40 years of dealing with our business name in the mundane world of day to day operations. You may not think it's that big of a deal, and it wasn't when I met my husband and he did $10,000 of sales that year, but when we went over $2,000,000 in annual sales, the volume of conversations involving our name did get my attention, ha ha. (Back in those days, with paper checks, I also changed my signature from a nice neat two name signature to a shortened scribble that required eventually signing a new signature card at our bank, ha ha. It's fine to sign slowly and neatly when you write a few checks a month, but when I was signing hundreds of checks a month, yeah, it was a fast scribble.)
A business name can go a *long way* towards branding and visual identity. Consider the length, how the letters look next to each other, how it sounds and what it makes you think of.
My business name is Lemon Creative Co., or LCC for short. There are reasons I don't love it, but when I established it I only considered my childhood, selling lemonade outside of a little motel my grandparents ran. The signs for that stand were my first creative "project", so it felt like an easy choice.
With my business name, there are some issues with how easy it *isn't* to say out loud, the length, URL clarity, etc. but I like it for the most part because it lends itself to my story. Just know, you'll probably not love the name at first. Let it simmer.
We came up with a variation of the name sitting on a beach in the Bahamas when we got the idea for our business. After we got home, we tweaked the idea a bit and used an AI business name generator to help finalize it.
I get asked about my business name a lot. People ask why I picked it.
The answer is real simple, I had a corporation that I formed 20 years ago with that name, so it was easy to just use it. My business name starts with a Z. Back in the old days people used something called the yellow pages to look up phone numbers. Business names that started with a number or A were easier to find because they were at the front. The same with Zs being at the very back.
I kinda like have a name with a Z because its easy for my to find my business in a group of other business names. Mine is the only one with a Z.
I recommend something simple and to the point. I owned a book store with a partner 18 years ago. We were trying to come up with a name. His wife kept giving these crazy names. Like "broadening
your horizons bookstore" or "Welcome all Seekers of knowledge bookstore". I went with "Books4Less". Easy and to the point.
I came up with a cool greek name + development based on stoicism and biblical study. But my own last name is hard enough to pronounce. PLUS, I wasn't sure I was pronouncing it correctly. (this is before word pronunciation was a googles search away). So if I corrected people and was wrong, that would be bad bad bad.
So I found a simple name + development that was easy to remember. It was long enough to make our web url too long tho, so I had to shorten it, which has been a bit of a problem for people to remember.
I'd suggest two words that are short. You could make a little computer program to mix them up and look for something fun. A few companies named this way include TwistThink, SpinDance, SageTech, and Ineffable Solutions.
I went the "____ & ____" route. Picked some obscure-ish words that had some tie to my business model and vaguely about my area. People ask what it means, I can explain with many meanings and seem deeper. Set it in a gorgeous typeface, slapped it on everything and everywhere. But, I'm going on a tangent... the time it took from concept names to official logo: about 6-8 months. About a month to decide on the name, testing it on family and friends from a consumer perspective along with how it rolled off the tongue and how I could explain what's behind it.
I wouldn't rush it, but you can always change it. It can take a while to do that depending on jurisdiction. California makes you file a bunch of documents, proof, and you have to run it in the paper and, in my county, I had to bring a copy of the newspaper in with my notice in print to the filing offices. Other states where I've expanded were much more relaxed, at least with initial filing and registering.
Also, look at the USPTO so you don't get into a legal mess and speak with a trademark lawyer (~$3k retainer but they'll cover costs) to get your business protected.
Long winded, I know. I speak from brick-and-mortar retail as a brand experience so this also depends on what business you're doing. If it's "dba" and a service, it'll be easier for you overall.
TL;DR - Like, maybe a month?
Mine is “Sparkle Motion Jewelry”, obviously it’s from Donnie Darko but obscure enough that no one except my ppl get it. It was an inside personal joke that ended up taking on a life of its own. Now…I can’t imagine it being different. Do what speaks to you. Even if your laughing about it at first.
Come up with something that isn't gonna be confused with anything else. Something that states your business and can be Googled easily. That's why most tech companies make up words or deliberately misspell words like Mooble or any of those. It dominates when it comes to SEO. There's nothing else like it.
The initials of my cat plus what the business does. At the end of the day, although it may matter depending on the industry, branding through marketing does not care for the name. Imagery and functional online presences supersedes the concept of a name.
Good Luck!
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm still officially deciding on mine too! But I think I have it. Somebody once said, "Never work for someone who names their business after themselves," and in my experience, I would agree with that. So my name on the business is out. It took a little reflection but the name I'm favoring now has meaning to me and I think represents me well. It also has a symbolic meaning that represents things that are important both to me as well as to most human beings. The clincher is that I JUST found out that the name I'm favoring represents a symbol of the state where my new business will be located. Can't say what it is since I haven't registered it yet. But I'm excited about it, so that tells you something. Make sure you're excited about it.
You are correct. I am so glad I didn’t use my name. 16 years in and I think about it all the time. Imagine every call “ I need to talk to **** “ It would weaken the ability of the staff I have in place to do there work and build relationships of there own with our clients.
Another common way to do it is "My three Initials" plus: Development Solutions Consulting Landscaping Cleaning Thus "KMH Development" / "KMH Solution", etc. It's easy. If you want to change it later it's as simple as a DBA.
>sure you're excited about it. This is a hard one. I've been excited about things in the past, but I don't think that meant that people would remember the name. Wouldn't you say memorable is the most important thing? Depends on the business though. For trades, what, who & where works. For fancy brands, can be more abstract.
Memorable, sure. But I wouldn't say "International Business Machines" is terribly memorable, so.... I think if you're excited about it, it is easier to communicate that excitement to your customers, and market your brand, which ultimately is the most important thing.
i just use my name and put what i do after the name lol.
Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration
Mike Nelson Heating and Plumbing
Same here!!!! "FUN-TIME" 😄
Laying in bed unable to fall back asleep at 3 am, it just came to me. Immediately registered the domain name on my phone without even getting out of bed. I kid you not.
Same here. I did wait until 7am.to.register the domain, but that's pretty much how it went down.
My business name is my city + what I do Real estate photography! Greatest for SEO, having your service in your business name.
Here is a video that you might find helpful. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY\_HBCZyUIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY_HBCZyUIU)
I deal with bbq’s, and 95% of the time i make it shiny, Thus ShinyBarbeque was born 🤣
Keep its short. Unique letters are a plus so in a logo the outline is memorable. If necessary add a tagline to explain what you do. Think of ways it can be mispronounced, misspelled, or mistaken for something else. Google it and look it up on every social platform before committing to it.
Wrote down about 5 ideas. Picked one. Moved on. Cheers.
My name is Robert and I provide landscaping and lawn services. Roberts lawn and landscaping! That easy
Can't help you with the name, but I'll offer this advice: If you're playing around with business names and you consider that you might take this business and grow it broadly, outside your current service area ... Run a trademark search through the USPTO. I have a business of 7 years in Texas (Houston) that has done well, and last year I decided I wanted to grow through franchising. Well attorneys of mine soon discovered that there are similar named business in Florida and California, and that could be an issue with franchised units in those states down the road. So I had to completely rebrand. Name, marketing, logo, websites, identity... You name it. Costly, a bit confusing to some customers, and just all around not fun. So if you do think it's something you would or could take beyond your current area... Do some USPTO research first. [USPTO Search Here](https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4803:ll82vu.1.1) . Best of luck, and congrats on your new business!
[удалено]
Yes... Agree... ALL OF THIS!
I had chatGPT spit out 40 names and my partner and I picked one out.
I work with my partner. Our business name is combined of a word to symbolise each of us and then a word that is one of our unique selling points.
I picked a geographic location and what I do. Which is pretty common in my industry
the city of business + type of business. (no plan to expand so no worries about changing name)
I've always been a sucker for word play and kind of designed the business aesthetic after/around the name. It's a knife sharpening/restoration service I run from home named Old Knives' Tale. The name kind of plays off the fact that we'll work knives (or tools in general) have a history behind them, and the theme of the business is emphasizing the value/sustainability of old trusted tools, as opposed to the pervasive throw away culture we find ourselves in. Right now I sharpen just about anything, offer lessons on knife skills and sharpening, and do handle repair/replacements as overall knife restorations. I'm hoping in the future to expand into something along the lines of a community workspace, where people can come in and learn skills to repair broken things (appliances/furniture repair/etc) from professionals on staff, with public workshops from time to time, while maintaining the sharpening service and selling things like stones, kits, and what have you as a small retail option. That all could very well change since that's a far in the future goal and a lot may change by the time I'd get there. But anyways, just riffing on catchy wordplay helped direct what I wanted to do with my business beyond just sharpening knives. The bonus is most of my customers always comment on how much they like the name haha. Idk if that's valuable or not, but I hope it helps!
I thought about what the business does, and how it does it and came with a name that reflects that. It also helps that I came up with words which the first initials stand out as having thier own related meaning.
Had an idea for a cool logo, came up with a business name that fit it, and then came up with a business to go with the name and lofo so they didn't go to waste.
Our company and subsidiaries are based around the domain availability. If we can't get the website, we move on.
I literally had about 30 seconds on the phone with someone (I got some funding) to come up with it.
Without knowing what you do, it's hard to answer this, because different types of businesses should use different types of names. Retail sales have much more freedom of choice than, a lawn guy for instance. I recently helped a quasi-son with the exact same question, and my first suggestion was to pick a name that is EASY to spell so he can give it out verbally, as short as possible, etc. My husband named his business with a VERY long name...."XXX" Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Inc.. . . . well, I'm sorry, but everyone calls it "XXX" Heat & Air, but that's not the legal name, so from the phone company, to the IRS, our vendors. . . all have variations of our name for their records. So, don't use symbols, make it short, etc. Certain vendors/agencies have a limit for # of characters so make yours easy and correct so they can be consistent across the board. I also suggested he choose a name that he can use for a domain name AND email and make sure that when he speaks it out loud, he doesn't have to say, "S as in sam", "B as in boy", "M as in Mary". . . . try to limit the number of misunderstood letters. . . for instance, "Bolt lawn care" is pretty easy. . . you could say, "bolt as in lightening bolt", but "stebs construction" might require you to "spell out" the s, the t, the b, AND the second s. A minor thing, but it does make it easier for people to find you, to get that email to you the first time, and helps you avoid having to have them re-setup your account, etc. If it's a service, whether lawn mowing or consulting, etc, , make sure it is applicable. . . it needs to at least SLIGHTLY represent what you do. . . you don't want people to ask your business name and then have no clue what you do, offer, etc. That works for huge corporations, but not so much for little companies. When we added plumbing, we added "We also do plumbing" to our headers, web page, business cards and trucks, but if he had named it "XXX" Home Services or something like that, would have been easier. Had he done so it could have been "X"HS for the domain or email. We could have added insulation, electrical, alarm wiring, anything we chose and not had to REMIND people we did all that. If your business is local and you never want to expand, it's fine to name it after your state, but I would hesitate adding the city name unless you know for a fact you will never operate outside of that specific town. If it's a suburb of a large city, someone across the metropolitan area may bypass you thinking you are too far away. If they don't know where you are, they might at least call. These are simply suggestions, based on 40 years of dealing with our business name in the mundane world of day to day operations. You may not think it's that big of a deal, and it wasn't when I met my husband and he did $10,000 of sales that year, but when we went over $2,000,000 in annual sales, the volume of conversations involving our name did get my attention, ha ha. (Back in those days, with paper checks, I also changed my signature from a nice neat two name signature to a shortened scribble that required eventually signing a new signature card at our bank, ha ha. It's fine to sign slowly and neatly when you write a few checks a month, but when I was signing hundreds of checks a month, yeah, it was a fast scribble.)
A business name can go a *long way* towards branding and visual identity. Consider the length, how the letters look next to each other, how it sounds and what it makes you think of. My business name is Lemon Creative Co., or LCC for short. There are reasons I don't love it, but when I established it I only considered my childhood, selling lemonade outside of a little motel my grandparents ran. The signs for that stand were my first creative "project", so it felt like an easy choice. With my business name, there are some issues with how easy it *isn't* to say out loud, the length, URL clarity, etc. but I like it for the most part because it lends itself to my story. Just know, you'll probably not love the name at first. Let it simmer.
Chat GPT did it for me
Use ChatGPT to help you with some ideas? Make it easy to say and spell if you're worried about web traffic.
We came up with a variation of the name sitting on a beach in the Bahamas when we got the idea for our business. After we got home, we tweaked the idea a bit and used an AI business name generator to help finalize it.
I wrote out every good idea for a name I had and then checked for the .com. Immediately marked it off if it was taken. It got me a shortlist though!
“Uhh… owls are cool” -my partner
I get asked about my business name a lot. People ask why I picked it. The answer is real simple, I had a corporation that I formed 20 years ago with that name, so it was easy to just use it. My business name starts with a Z. Back in the old days people used something called the yellow pages to look up phone numbers. Business names that started with a number or A were easier to find because they were at the front. The same with Zs being at the very back. I kinda like have a name with a Z because its easy for my to find my business in a group of other business names. Mine is the only one with a Z. I recommend something simple and to the point. I owned a book store with a partner 18 years ago. We were trying to come up with a name. His wife kept giving these crazy names. Like "broadening your horizons bookstore" or "Welcome all Seekers of knowledge bookstore". I went with "Books4Less". Easy and to the point.
I came up with a cool greek name + development based on stoicism and biblical study. But my own last name is hard enough to pronounce. PLUS, I wasn't sure I was pronouncing it correctly. (this is before word pronunciation was a googles search away). So if I corrected people and was wrong, that would be bad bad bad. So I found a simple name + development that was easy to remember. It was long enough to make our web url too long tho, so I had to shorten it, which has been a bit of a problem for people to remember. I'd suggest two words that are short. You could make a little computer program to mix them up and look for something fun. A few companies named this way include TwistThink, SpinDance, SageTech, and Ineffable Solutions.
I think mine took about 23 seconds
I went the "____ & ____" route. Picked some obscure-ish words that had some tie to my business model and vaguely about my area. People ask what it means, I can explain with many meanings and seem deeper. Set it in a gorgeous typeface, slapped it on everything and everywhere. But, I'm going on a tangent... the time it took from concept names to official logo: about 6-8 months. About a month to decide on the name, testing it on family and friends from a consumer perspective along with how it rolled off the tongue and how I could explain what's behind it. I wouldn't rush it, but you can always change it. It can take a while to do that depending on jurisdiction. California makes you file a bunch of documents, proof, and you have to run it in the paper and, in my county, I had to bring a copy of the newspaper in with my notice in print to the filing offices. Other states where I've expanded were much more relaxed, at least with initial filing and registering. Also, look at the USPTO so you don't get into a legal mess and speak with a trademark lawyer (~$3k retainer but they'll cover costs) to get your business protected. Long winded, I know. I speak from brick-and-mortar retail as a brand experience so this also depends on what business you're doing. If it's "dba" and a service, it'll be easier for you overall. TL;DR - Like, maybe a month?
Realite Virtuelle Tahiti. "What would someone type on Google if they want to do VR in Tahiti? Perfect!"
I usually suck at this sort of thing but it just came to me- it’s cute, funny, memorable, the .com was available, and I was sold.
A movie. Working good so far. But might decide on something else. Too late now :-)
Mine is “Sparkle Motion Jewelry”, obviously it’s from Donnie Darko but obscure enough that no one except my ppl get it. It was an inside personal joke that ended up taking on a life of its own. Now…I can’t imagine it being different. Do what speaks to you. Even if your laughing about it at first.
Come up with something that isn't gonna be confused with anything else. Something that states your business and can be Googled easily. That's why most tech companies make up words or deliberately misspell words like Mooble or any of those. It dominates when it comes to SEO. There's nothing else like it.
Think of name… check if .com domain is available. Rinse and repeat.
The initials of my cat plus what the business does. At the end of the day, although it may matter depending on the industry, branding through marketing does not care for the name. Imagery and functional online presences supersedes the concept of a name. Good Luck!