Coming up with a business name that’s unique to you can be difficult and a task not to be taken lightly. Hopefully this article will give you food for thought to create a name that will sum up your business perfectly.
Choosing a business name begins to create an identity for your business so you need to consider carefully the image you wish to portray to your customers about who you are and what you do.
Ideally your business name should convey the niche in which you trade, but that’s not always the case. Some of the most successful companies have names that have nothing to do with the products they’re selling. Look at Amazon, what’s that got to do with books I hear you say. Well, apparently the creators had a vision from the very beginning that they wanted to create a vast megastore and wanted a business name to reflect that, hence Amazon.
Now that’s great thinking ‘outside the box’ and it paid off. However, you don’t have to be so visionary unless you want to. There are no limits to creating a business name and, indeed, your business name may not necessarily be your domain name if, say for instance, you intend to trade in a number of niche markets. You could choose an ‘umbrella’ name to which your customers will pay you. This will be your legal business name that is registered with the authorities.
There are some words you are not allowed to use within your business name that may cause offence or give the wrong impression that your business is linked to, say, government or royalty. You should be able to get a full list from your Dept of Trade & Industry.
Here are a few tips on choosing your ideal business name:-
- Make it short, make it memorable and easy to spell
- Try and relate it to your core product or your niche
- Try to avoid dashes, underscores, and numbers
- Think about how you want people to feel when they hear the name
- Use a thesaurus to come up with alternatives to the obvious
- Find out the greek, latin, other language translations of your words. Think of colours, gemstones, animals that would ideally suit your niche
- Once you’ve come up with a name check that the domain name is available and that the name is not registered by another business
Be adventurous as you like but remember you will have your business name for a very long time (hopefully) and it will be on all your business stationery – delivery notes, invoices, compliment slips, business cards, letterheads – as well as on your website, social networking sites, emails, and you will say it a hundred times a day as you take phone calls, deal with suppliers, etc., so it’s worth taking the time to decide on a business name that you enjoy saying, that won’t date and, most of all, that you can be proud of.
3 comments
Dan.C
February 1, 2012 at 1:14 am (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Thanks, great Startup Advice post
Dan.C
February 1, 2012 at 1:02 am (UTC 1) Link to this comment
Really great. Thanks
SBC
March 26, 2012 at 11:19 pm (UTC 1) Link to this comment
It’s tough thinking of one. Hope it helped