How to Choose Effective Business Names: A Practical Guide
Most advice on business names is romantic nonsense. It treats naming like a mystical art form, sending entrepreneurs on a quest for the “perfect” name that’s unique, clever, and profound all at once.
This is a waste of time.
Pursuing the perfect name is the most significant source of procrastination for new business owners. They burn weeks, even months, chasing a clever pun or a “brandable” empty vessel instead of choosing a functional name and getting on with finding customers.
Let's be blunt. A business name is not a poem. It’s a piece of equipment. It has a job.
Its job is to be findable, memorable, and not legally problematic. That’s it. This guide is about how to find a name that does its job so you can do yours.
- A business name should be easy to find, memorable, and legally sound.
- The name must clearly hint at what your business does without misleading customers.
- Avoid names that create problems, like difficult spelling or negative connotations.
- Test your shortlisted names with potential customers for clarity and relevance.
- Avoid design by committee and cleverness at the cost of clarity in your business name.
The First Question No One Asks: What is the Name's Job?
Before you open a thesaurus or a “business name generator,” you must define your name's job description. A name isn’t about you or your creative flair; it's a utility for your customer. Does it help them find you, remember you, and understand what you offer?
A good name must accomplish three primary jobs.
Job 1: Be Easy to Find & Share. This is the most critical job. If people can't find you, you don't exist. This breaks down into two simple tests.
- The Google Test: Can a potential customer type what they think your name is into a search bar and find you on the first try?
- The Pub Test: Can you tell someone your business name in a noisy pub, and can they repeat it and spell it correctly without asking you three times?
If your name fails these tests, it creates friction for your business’s most important customers.
Job 2: Hint at What You Do (or Don't). Your name needs to set an expectation. It can do this by being crystal clear (e.g., London Coffee Roasters) or creating intrigue (e.g., Apple). What it cannot be is misleading. A name like “Apex Global Dynamics” tells a customer nothing and sounds like a shell corporation. The name should either clarify your offer or open a door to your brand story.
Job 3: Don't Create Unnecessary Problems. A bad name actively works against you. It creates problems that you, the business owner, must spend time and money solving. This means avoiding names that are hard to spell, have unintended negative meanings in other languages or slang, or sail too close to a competitor's trademark.
The 4 Types of Business Names (And When to Use Them)
This isn't an academic classification. It's a practical breakdown of your four main options. Understanding these categories helps you decide which tool is right for the job you defined above.
The Descriptive Name: Brutally Obvious, Brutally Effective
This is the “says what it does on the tin” approach. The name describes the business, the product, or the service directly.
- Examples: Dollar Shave Club, The Carphone Warehouse, 5-Hour Energy.
- Pros: It’s instantly understood. There is zero confusion about what you do. This clarity is fantastic for search engine optimisation (SEO) and customers looking for a specific solution.
- Cons: These names can feel generic and are often difficult to trademark because they use common words. They can also limit you if your business expands into new areas. The Carphone Warehouse, for instance, stopped focusing on cell phones decades ago.
- Use it when: You have a simple, clear value proposition and a limited marketing budget. Clarity is your competitive advantage.
The Evocative Name: Selling a Feeling, Not a Function
Evocative names use suggestion and metaphor to hint at a benefit, a feeling, or a bigger idea. They connect the brand to a story.
- Examples: Patagonia (evokes the wild, rugged outdoors), Apple (originally suggested a friendly, simple alternative to the cold, complex IBM), Innocent Drinks (suggests natural, pure ingredients).
- Pros: They are highly memorable and can build a powerful emotional connection with customers. They are also much easier to trademark than descriptive names.
- Cons: They require marketing effort to build the connection between the name and the business. An evocative name means nothing without a story and consistent branding to back it up.
- Use it when: Your brand is your primary differentiator. You aren't just selling a product; you're selling an identity, a lifestyle, or a promise.
The Invented Name: The High-Risk, High-Reward Gamble
An invented name is an entirely new word, created just for the brand. This is my second pet peeve because it is the option most abused by startups.
- Examples: Kodak, Google, Xerox, Exxon.
- Pros: It’s a genuine blank slate. The name is almost guaranteed to be available as a .com domain and will be easy to trademark.
- Cons: It means absolutely nothing to a customer. Giving an empty word meaning costs a fortune in marketing. George Eastman had the resources to make “Kodak” synonymous with photography. You probably don't. These names are also often hard to pronounce and spell.
- Use it when: You have millions of pounds in funding and a long-term strategy to make that word famous. For 99% of businesses, this is the wrong choice.
The Founder/Legacy Name: Using a Personal Touch
This approach uses a person's real or fictional name to anchor the brand.
- Examples: Ford, Disney, Warby Parker (named after two Jack Kerouac characters).
- Pros: It can add a sense of heritage, craftsmanship, and personality. It makes the business feel human.
- Cons: It ties the brand directly to an individual. If that person leaves the company or becomes embroiled in a scandal, this can be a problem. It can also make a tech or modern service company sound old-fashioned.
The Pragmatic Naming Process: From Chaos to Clarity in 3 Steps
Stop brainstorming with a thesaurus for days on end. That process is unstructured and leads to frustration. Use this systematic approach to generate and filter names efficiently.
Step 1: The Brain-Dump (Quantity Over Quality)
Set a timer for 60 minutes. Your only goal is to generate a massive list of potential words, phrases, and name fragments. Do not judge any of them. Judgement is the enemy of creativity at this stage.
Use different starting points to fuel the list:
- Verbs: What does your customer do with your product? (e.g., Connect, Build, Grow, Relax)
- Nouns: What are the core components? What is the result? (e.g., Oak, River, Shield, Compass)
- Adjectives: What feeling are you creating? (e.g., Bold, Simple, Bright, True)
- Metaphors: What is your business like? (e.g., A lighthouse guiding customers, a key unlocking potential).
The goal is a raw list of 50-100 possibilities. Most will be terrible. That’s fine.
Step 2: The Brutal Gauntlet (Where 99% of Names Die)
This is the most critical step. This is where you switch from creator to ruthless editor. Every single name from your brain-dump list must survive this gauntlet. If it fails even one of these checks, it's dead. Cross it off and move on.
- The Availability Check: Is the clean .com domain available? Are the main social media handles (Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn) available? Don't settle for a hyphenated domain or a handle with “UK” or “_official” at the end. If the core digital real estate is taken, the name is dead.
- The Google Search Check: Search for the name in quotation marks. What comes up? Is there a competitor with a similar name? Does the name have an embarrassing or weird meaning in slang or pop culture? Are the search results so crowded that you'll never rank?
- The Trademark Check: Perform a basic search on the trademark databases for your country (e.g., the UK's Intellectual Property Office or the US's USPTO). Is another company in your industry already using it? This is not a substitute for legal advice from a trademark lawyer, but it can quickly eliminate apparent conflicts.
- The “Say it Aloud” Check: Call a friend. Say, “I'm thinking of naming my business [Name].” Do they ask you to spell it? Do they mishear it as something else? If it's not immediately straightforward to say, it's dead.
Step 3: The Real-World Test
After the gauntlet, you might have 3-5 names left. This is your shortlist. Now, you need to test them.
Do not ask your friends, family, or partner, “Which name do you like best?” This is the worst question you can ask. Liking a name is subjective and irrelevant.
Instead, test for function. Approach a few people (ideally, people who represent your target customer) and say:
“I'm starting a business called ‘[Name]'. Based on the name alone, what do you think we do?”
Their answers are pure gold. Do they accurately guess your industry? Do their assumptions about the brand's personality (e.g., “it sounds expensive” or “it sounds fun”) align with your goals? This test replaces subjective opinion with objective feedback on whether the name is doing its job.
The 3 Cardinal Sins of Naming a Business
We see the same mistakes made by entrepreneurs every single day. They are predictable, and they are avoidable.
Sin #1: Designing by Committee
This is my biggest pet peeve. The founder has a shortlist of names and decides to “be collaborative” by sending out a survey to their family, friends, and every contact on LinkedIn.
This always ends in disaster. A dozen people will give you a dozen different opinions, and to avoid offending anyone, you'll choose the safest, most agreeable, and most boring option. The name that pleases everyone is a name that excites no one.
Naming is a strategic decision. It is not a democracy.
Sin #2: Chasing Clever and Forgetting Clear
Founders are often desperate to sound clever. They choose names full of puns, insider jargon, or convoluted metaphors. They are proud of themselves, but their customers are just confused.
Clarity pays the bills. Cleverness just strokes the founder's ego.
Imagine you need your computer fixed. You see two local companies online: “Synergetik Solutions” and “Cambridge Computer Repair.” Which one are you going to call? Exactly.
Sin #3: The “-ify” and “-ly” Plague
This is a specific strain of the “chasing clever” virus. Around 2010, adding “-ify” or “-ly” to a word (e.g., Shopify, Spotify, Bitly) was a fresh way to signal you were a tech startup.
It is no longer fresh. It is a tired cliché.
Using this naming convention today doesn't make you sound innovative. It makes you sound like you're following a decade-old trend. Your name will be instantly lost in a sea of sound-alikes, making it harder for customers to remember you specifically.
A name that stands out needs a strong visual identity to match. See how we approach brand naming as part of a complete system.
A Name is Just the Beginning
No matter how good, a name cannot do the work for you. It is an empty container. Your actions, product quality, customer service, and brand's visual identity fill that container with meaning.
Look at the recent rebranding of Twitter to X. The name “Twitter” has had over 15 years of global brand equity. The words “tweet” and “retweet” were in the dictionary. That name was an asset worth billions. Throwing it away for a generic letter demonstrates how much value can be stored in a name once it's filled with meaning.
A great name cannot save a bad business. But a bad name can absolutely cripple a great one.
Conclusion
Stop searching for the perfect name. It doesn't exist.
Instead, look for a functional name. A tool that does its job. One that is easy to find and share and doesn't get in your way.
Run your ideas through the gauntlet. Test them in the real world. Make a decision, and then get back to the more critical work of building a business worth naming in the first place.
Ready to Give Your Name Meaning?
Choosing a name is the first step. Turning that name into a brand people recognise, remember, and trust is the next step. A powerful name deserves a powerful visual identity. Let's talk if you're ready to build the brand that brings your name to life.
See our brand naming services to understand our process, or request a quote to directly start the conversation with us.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What makes a business name good?
A good business name is, first and foremost, functional. It should be easy for customers to spell, pronounce, and remember. It must also be legally available, with an open .com domain and corresponding social media handles.
How long should a business name be?
Shorter is almost always better. One to two words is ideal. A shorter name is easier to remember and type and fits better on logos, marketing materials, and mobile screens.
Should I use a business name generator?
Business name generators can be helpful during the initial brain-dumping phase to get ideas flowing, but they rarely produce a usable final name. They often spit out generic, uninspired combinations or trendy names that will quickly sound dated.
What is the difference between a descriptive and an evocative name?
A descriptive name directly states what the business does (e.g., “Dublin Web Design“). An evocative name suggests a feeling, benefit, or brand story (e.g., “Patagonia,” which evokes adventure). Descriptive names are clear but can be generic; evocative names are more memorable but require marketing to build meaning.
How important is having the .com domain?
For most businesses, having the matching .com domain is critically important. It's the default extension customers assume, and not having it can make you look less professional and lead to lost traffic as users mistakenly go to the .com version.
Should I include my location in my business name?
Including your location (e.g., “Seattle Coffee Roasters”) can be very effective for local businesses that serve a specific geographic area. It's great for local SEO. However, if you plan to expand to other regions, it can limit you.
Can I use my own name for my business?
Using your name is a classic approach, especially for consultants, artists, and skilled craftspeople. It builds a personal brand but can make the business harder to sell later, as it's tied directly to you.
What are the biggest mistakes to avoid when choosing a name?
The three biggest mistakes are: 1) Choosing a difficult name to spell or pronounce. 2) Picking a name already trademarked or that has its .com domain taken. 3) Getting stuck in “analysis paralysis” for months instead of making a decision.
How do I check if a business name is taken?
First, do a simple Google search. Second, check domain registrars (like GoDaddy) for the .com availability. Third, check all major social media platforms. Finally, perform a basic search on your national trademark office's website.
What if all the good names are already taken?
It often feels that way, but there are always options. Try combining two short words, using an evocative metaphor, or adding a simple, relevant verb to a noun. The key is to run every new idea through the pragmatic filtering process, not just to keep searching for a single “perfect” word.
Is it a bad idea to use a trendy name?
Yes. Trends die. A name built on a current trend (like the “-ify” suffix) will make your business sound dated in 3-5 years. Aim for a timeless quality that will last as long as your business.
When should I hire a professional naming agency?
Consider hiring an experienced agency like Inkbot Design when you're in a crowded market and need to stand out, have a complex brand story, or simply understand that a strong brand name is a long-term asset worth a professional investment.
