How to Choose a Company Name
Companies with big budgets can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for top notch naming consultants to come up with product or company names for them. If you are on your own without deep pockets, fear not. Choosing a company name is a strange combination of luck, creativity, play and research. it's free and anyone can do it, sometimes it just takes a little persverence if the perfect name doesn't immediately pop out at you and make itself available to you to register.
1. Luck. Let's face it. For whatever reason, some names you wouldn't think in a million years are good names turn out to be power hitters, while other names that you would think would sell the company or product on the name alone flop. I'm convinced some good old Kismet is at play with company naming. That being said, there are some very concrete steps to take in choosing a good company name, website name or name. Read on and good luck!
2. Get out paper and pen. Jot down as many words as you can think of that relate to your product or service. Free association can yield some gems to either combine with other words or play on. Think of what your product or service does, the benefits, the features, every word or color you can think of that might be relevant, what it does for the end user, how it makes them feel, why they want to use it or buy it, etc. You should end up with at least one full page of words scribbled down. Then put another piece of paper next to that one and try combining half of one word with half of another in ways that make sense. Or, use common prefixes or suffixes, or add words to the end of it like "valley, lane, river, garden, pool" etc.
3. Use company naming tools. There are tons of naming tools on the internet that can help you come up with word combinations you would never otherwise think of. NameCombo is a great company name generator to try. It has hundreds of prepopulated word lists which you can combine with your own seed words two word names, three word nams and four word names. You can also combine prefixes, suffixes, single alphabet letters and more to create blended one word names.
4. Descriptive is often best but memorable is better. The commonly held rule has always been "make your name say what you do" which would mean Amazon should have been "Buy Books and More Online". Amazon Books still says what is, the word Amazon is memorable, it's easy to spell, and it meets another long held preference for the letter A so that your name shows up early in alphabetical lists, such as directories and phone books.
5. Look at a list of good company names and get ideas. As you will see when you look at a list of good company names, some break all the rules and are wildly sucessful. It's also easy to get intimidated because so many of them are short, one word names and finding available domain names that are one word or one word blends are tough to do.
6. See if your favorites are available domain names. Go to a domain name registrar, we like GoDaddy for many reasons, and check to see if your company name are available domain names. NameCombo's domain name search engine can help you find these gems if they are available, or help you find word blends you wouldn't think of on your own. Either way, you've got to come up with a name for which the domain name is available to register. Personally, I do this first before I do the next step. It really sucks to have a few great names that people love only to find out the domain name is not available! Find out if you can have it first!
7. Get opinions. Since you want your name to be appealing to people, the best way to test it is to ask people to tell you which names they like from your short list. The good news is that everyone will have an opinion. The bad news is they often won't have the same opinion! But if one or two names keep popping up as your friends' and family's favorites, you might have a winner.
8. Check to see if your short list names are trademarked. Once you have names you like, check to see if they are trademarked at the USPTO. Absolutely do not even consider using a name that is already trademarked for a similar product or service.
9. Do an internet search for your names. Do a search on several search engines for your short list of company names and see what your competition might be like. You want to stand out from the competition, not fight for eyeballs in the search engines. If there are other companies with similar names you risk being confused with them and losing customers to them. Find a more unique name.
10. Sleep on it. Let the names you like rattle around in your head for a day or two and see which ones keep rising to the top of your list. If you resonate with your new company name, the company will be more successful than if you never really loved the name to begin with. Keep looking, combining, playing with word blends and combinations until you find something that sticks in your mind and makes you happy to say it. You will be talking up your new company, make sure you feel good about the name before you invest time and money in the company. Good luck!
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