Every entrepreneur, when the time comes, wonders, what exactly should I be looking for in a company name? The Brandings Team knows, because most of our team are entrepreneurs themselves. We know because we’ve been there, we’ve been sitting at the table at 2 or 3 am, working on the perfect company name.
Keeping that in mind, we’ve grabbed some of the team and put together this great article on company naming. And, furthermore, we’ve added a few key points that every entrepreneur will want to look out for.
You may have noticed that it’s been a while since we’ve written about how to name a company. So, we thought it might be a good idea to add a new blog about the very subject.
That child’s name or business name will be with you for the life of the company. That name will grow and expand and that same name could limit or hinder you in the future. That means every entrepreneur must take their time and really think about the name; now’s no time to rush!
A New Name for Your Company or Brand
Let’s start off first with a great tip for naming your company. Actually has nothing to do with your company name ideas exactly. The tip however is, that no matter how great those company name ideas are, if you can’t procure the exact match dot-com domain name, you have to move on.
We’re living in an interesting time where ICANN (to learn more about ICANN), is releasing more and more domain name extensions. They’re simply making the dot-com domain the default domain name extension. The dot-com is must have domain extension for all business matters. If you can’t get the dot-com domain name for your company name ideas, you must move on.
In this modern world we live in you can’t have a company without the corresponding domain name. If you can’t find the exact match domain it is possible to manipulate the name, although we don’t highly recommend it.
There may be some rare occasions where you don’t necessarily need for a short and easy to communicate domain name. There are other rare occasions where you have no need or desire for expansion in the future. In these exceptional cases, you could add the word “the” or “company” to the name. In theses cases, these words would be added to the beginning or end of the domain. Let’s get back to the topic of company naming, however.
Entrepreneurs Should Avoid These Startup Naming Traps
There are several traps to not to fall into when naming your company. The first and most common, is picking a overly specific business name. These overly specific names appear in every industry. A quick example is Men’s Warehouse. This clothier is forever stuck with “Men’s” in their name, you can forget about adding a woman’s line.
Additionally don’t fall into a regional trap. Here’s one made up example, “Palm Springs Shrimp.” The entrepreneur must, at some point, ask themselves, what if you want to expand out of Palm Springs?
In a rare example, the only way this could work is if the location you’re using has a positive association to it. Maybe this location has a cachet about it which may help you. By this we mean is using the city of Beverly Hills for your luxury company. Everyone associates Beverly Hills with luxury. That means, if you are opening a high end boutique in Oklahoma City this geographic association may work well.
An interesting and funny issue we came across the other day; if you have a multiple word company name and buy the multiple word domain name to go with it, look at what the words look like together without spaces and in a universal font. There is an Italian Power Generator company that became a laughing stock after they went with their domain www.powergenitalia.com!
We don’t want to scare you but, naming your company is quite important and Brandings.com is here to help. We pride ourselves with “working backward,” where we develop business, company and product names, then make sure the domain is available so that when you search on our site, you know which ever name you pick, you know that the exact match dot-com domain name is available.
If you’re still having trouble naming your company and would like a little inspiration, have no fears, the Brandings Business Name Generator is here. Our Business Name Generator is a computer program that takes available business names from our inventory, names that you may not have considered before, and presents them to you in a new format.
Check it out, you’ll be surprised by the product names and business names that come up, ones you may not have considered before but ones that could just make that splash within your industry!
Ah, school is back on so, with that in mind, here are some of the school related business names that are available at Brandings:
With that in mind, we’ve come across a great article about how to judge business name ideas whether they’re ones that you’ve develop yourself or ones that come up from our Brand Name Generator. You’ll find that some of the tips are the same as we’ve recommended both on this blog and on other blogs from the past.
Enjoy and please let us know if you have any tips for business naming, we’d love to hear it so post it below.
Business Name Generator – Five More Important Features of Business Names
Here are more tips and suggestions which can help you pick a name easily from among the business name ideas your company name generator provided you:
1. It must have a dot-com domain
Nobody can deny that majority of the websites have a.com ending because it is the king of all domains. Yes, you might be paying much for it. However, it will still be at your advantage because you are getting rid of confusion for domains with vague endings.
So why would you need to choose anything else when there is a standard option you can use for the main website. Do not cause more complication to an online business name generator because it will also affect the overall standing of your business.
2. It must be well thought off
Think carefully how a word is read when combined together with other words. Do not give a chance wherein your business website names are misinterpreted in various ways.
Do not make the same mistake like these programmers who named their company as Experts Exchange. They choose a domain name expertsexchange.com which can be mistakenly read as expert sex change. Another example is the domain of an Italian Power Generator company – powergenitalia.com. It can also be mistakenly read as power genitalia.
3. It must be internationally appealing
If you have an intention to market your products internationally, research for its meaning in other people’s language. Let us take this example: Chevrolet named one of its cars as Chevy Nova and tried to sell it in Spain. Later did they realize that Nova is not really an appropriate name for a car because it means “no go.” Think of how you can convince the target market to buy the product if it is in contradiction to their perception or actual understanding.
4. It must not be too narrow and not too broad
Most companies fail to consider product or service line expansion in naming their businesses. If possible, use a name that will allow you to cater additional market. It will be costly and taxing to rename your company.
Do you get what I mean? I will show you an example. Ladies Apparel Company later realized they want to add children’s wear for a mother and daughter tandem. But they were known to be a seller of ladies’ wear only. So it will take much effort to renew the line of their business. The name set an unnecessary limitation.
Once you are about to come up with a final list seek out the opinion of other people. If you want, ask them to rate their choices. From their choices, it will be simpler for you to make the final and best choice.
The simple tips should give you a picture of your need to entrust the first pace of naming your company to a high-tech business naming tool. Because the process is not easy and you need the best help you can get to breeze out of this stage. And a business name generator can provide you the best possible business name ideas to choose from.
- Good business name ideas should have certain features to be really beneficial to the success of the company. Hire a company name generator and see how easily they can come up with business name ideas for you to choose from. Choose from among the many company name generators who can provide your business venture with a creative business name. Article Source
The Startup Naming Team would love to hear from you. Do you know of any funny domain names or startup names? We’d love to hear if you have any questions or comments about our article. Heck, we’d even like to hear if you have any suggestions on future post, let us know, post it below.
That’s funny about the Chevy “Nova.” I guess if you’re a huge company like Chevy you should really do some research before you launch something like a new car. You probably even run the name through Google or some other search engine to see if anything comes up.
Thanks Brad for the comment.
Yes, exactly a large company like Chevy should know better then make a naming mistake like that. There is no excuse for that kind of blunder. I hope that whatever money they paid their naming company they got back.
You’re idea of running a name through a search engine like Google is a very good idea. Sometimes hundreds of names will pop up but simply scrolling through the results will give you a pretty good idea of how the name is being used out there and if you can use the name or to see if there are any alternative meanings to the name.
Thanks for the comment.