Now that you have decided to start a business, surely you have to solve several problems, but if you have not thought of a name for your company, you must give it the importance it deserves, and do not leave it for the last moment.
The name of your company, business or brand is very important because it is the first thing the world will know about you; it is basically the first impression you will give to your clients or users, and you know how important it is to make a good first impression.
Basically, what you want from your company’s name is for it to be fixed in the mind of the consumer and to reflect the identity and vision of your project.
Although it seems like a simple task, it’s very easy to get lost when deciding or choosing a name that doesn’t meet your expectations, so here we’ll give you some tips to make this task easier, and we also suggest some applications that can do it for you.
Rules for choosing a name
No matter what your business is, nor the industry you are focused on, the name of your business must meet certain characteristics.
Here are some tips to help you choose a name or evaluate the quality if you have already chosen one:
Clarity: the name you choose must clearly convey the line of business of your company, for example, even without knowing anything about it, you know that the application Sin Delantal is dedicated to food. To choose a name with this feature, without reaching common places, we suggest you make a list of words related to your business and from there start to form the name.
Memorable: your name should be easy to remember. The human mind is not made to remember names in the long run. Luckily, there are some recommendations to memorize: the first one is to appeal to emotions, because it is easier to remember something that we found tender, pleasant or reminds us of a moment in life, for example Nestlé is easily remembered, because besides being short, it appeals to the nest, the home and even to maternal feelings.
Another recommendation is to make it short since for the human brain is easier to remember short words than several words or sentences, for example Avast is recorded faster in the memory than “Antivirus Advanced Set”.
Unique: not only for legal reasons, having a unique name is also an important key to having a name that impresses. Having a unique name gives you advantages in several fields, one of which is digital marketing, as it is easier to position a brand with this characteristic than a brand that shares the name with others.
It is important not to try too hard and end up making up words, or using extravagant terms that nobody understands or knows how to pronounce.
Attractive: this must be a feature that seems obvious, however achieving it is more complicated than it seems. A good advice is to think about who your target audience is, what they like, their age, their income, what language they speak. For example, it is clear that the brand Cuidado con el Perro (Beware of the dog) is focused on a young and casual audience.
A name that lasts: you must be optimistic and think that your brand will be active for many years, so the name you use should be, as far as possible, timeless. Try not to use current references that can go out of fashion very quickly. Also, avoid using your own name as the name of your business, because you surely want your business to go beyond you.
Short Length: We have already said that one of the attributes of a short name is that it is easier to remember, but there is another advantage, the fluency of speech catches your target audience. There are many examples of memorable short names: Apple, Uber, DiDi, TikTok or WhatsApp.
Compound names: a good idea is to form your name with two or more words, as it can allow you to give more information about your brand and guarantees that it will be a unique name. Coca-Cola and Lego are good examples of compound names that do their job of explaining more about their brand.
If you decide to construct your name in this way, remember that the word you come up with should be easy to pronounce and write.
It should have a nice ring to it: sometimes a word sounds good while you repeat it in your head, but you need to say it out loud several times to confirm that it is easy to pronounce and not to incur in cacophonies. Just think that, when you reach success, your brand will be spoken by thousands of people, you will hear it on radio, television and the Internet and the last thing you want is that they pronounce it differently each time.
Register it: go to the competent authorities (in the case of Mexico, the IMPI) to register your brand, this way you will know if they’re any other brands with the same name. Also, it is convenient, if you have chosen a compound name, to investigate if it does not have a pejorative or obscene meaning in another country, especially if you plan to expand internationally.
Apps that will help you get an original name
Maybe you already have a name for your business in mind and these tips just helped you to reaffirm it, but if you are not one of those lucky ones and you are not so sure about having enough creativity to choose a name, the following section is for you!
Here we present you some apps designed to generate names automatically:
Logaster is an application that includes new features, including the ability to create a brand identity and, of course, a name generator. To use it, you need to add two keywords and the line of business. With this information Logaster generates several name options within seconds.
NameMesh is another application in which you can enter several keywords and it generates different name proposals, which you can filter into short, funny, mixed and SEO-related ones.
Biz NameWiz like the other applications, it generates a list of names after a group of keywords is entered. The difference with other apps is that it also checks the availability of the domain name on the Internet.
Shopify is another website where you can generate names after entering several keywords. Like other tools, this one is also free.
Wordoid is a smart tool that generates fun words; you can enter a keyword to filter the results. It is a tool that helps you when you have run out of creativity.
NameStation is another tool which, from a keyword, generates a list of possible names, then filters them according to your business or industry. It also tells you if the chosen name already has a domain. The drawback is that you have to register before using it.
Do not focus only on one name, make a small list with several finalists and enter them into Google Ads, so you can analyze the volume of Internet searches that each of your names could have. This can help you make the final decision.
Comment on social media if you have used any of these apps to generate a name or tell us which brands have the most iconic names in your opinion.