How to Choose a Name for Your Startup? Complete Guide

Some founders believe that brand`s name doesn`t really matter — after all, there are so many more important things to do when setting up a business. Indeed, a good name won`t rescue your startup if the rest leaves a lot to be desired. However, a well selected name can be a perfect icing on the cake, boosting the recognition among customers.

Naming is the starting point in creating and strengthening the brand image in the market. Successful names evoke a lively response from the audience and is the key to positive experiences associated with the startup.

If you`re struggling to come up with names for your project, there`s no one-size-fits-all formula as well as for generating startup ideas. Nevertheless, we`ve digged out a handful of principles and techniques that can help you make up a name and assess it.

Naming Principles

Of course, simple brainstorming when looking for ideas is always great. But to make it more purposeful, we recommend setting factors you can stick to. Adhere to the following principles:

Examine your audience

At the end of the day, your startup`s name is aimed at attracting users. So, how are going to do this if you don`t know them?

Market research is a perfect tool for getting familiar with your customers. It includes different types and techniques like interviews, surveys, and data gathering. To learn more, check out the previous article. Thanks to a thorough market analysis, you get valuable insights like your audience`s social status, age, gender. needs, wants, expectations, and more. All this can be a holistic foundation for naming your brand.

Determine what kind of name your startup needs

Traditionally, there are certain categories of brand names. To narrow your search space, you can pick one of them beforehand:

• Synthetic — originally synthesized names that have artificial origin. Their meaning is not clear but that`s what makes them unique. Such names are typically chosen when a company has a wide range of products or wants to enter foreign markets. Examples: Canon, Agilent, Escada.
• Associated — names that have some references to the company`s products/services. Examples: Beats, Hummer.
• Fantasy — names associated with some fictional images. Examples: Starbucks, Pandora, Nestle. They don't say anything about the company's activities at all, but compensate for this by their catchy form.
• Descriptive — names directly saying what the company does. This is the most common type, particularly, for oil, banking, and aircraft industries. Examples: Turkish Airlines, Bank of America, Gazprom.

Generate as many ideas as possible

This is a simple rule of numbers: the more names you generate, the likelier you are to find a perfect one. Involve your friends or partners in this brainstorm to increase the chances. Even though you don`t come up with anything at all, you will have fun at least!

Don`t limit your imagination

All limitations are only in your head. A cool name can be found anywhere: in TV series, on advertising booklets or crackers packages. Always stay open to any information and think big. This is useful not only when creating a name, but anything.

3 Components When Creating a Brand`s Name

Although we recommend that you let your imagination run wild, there are some aspect that might limit it — marketing, linguistics, and jurisprudence. Each of them can affect the name of your brand in its own way:

• Marketing helps you investigate audience requests, competitive offers and market trends.
• Linguistics is needed to make up a name and analyze it at the level of semantics (including when translating into other languages).
• Jurisprudence enables you to assess the possibility of registering a name at the legislative level with subsequent protection.

Methods to Generate a Brand Name

As soon as you`re aware of fundamentals, let`s get into practice. Of course, you can use various name generators on the net. But if you want to try your imagination here are the most proven methods.

Founder`s name

Many companies were named in honor of their founders. You`ve definitely heard of Gucci, McDonald's, or Swarovski. And some of them even gain such popularity that even become common nouns. So if you have an original name or an interesting surname, you can use them as a company name. But try to objectively evaluate how well your name suits the brand.

Word combination

By using matching different words or their separate parts, you can make completely new names. For example, the world-famous sportswear brand Adidas was generated this way. The founder of the company was named Adolf Dassler, and friends often called him Adi Das. Other examples are 4you, Pepsi, Lukoil, Bananas, Pampers.

Alliteration

It is much easier to remember the name if it has a rhyme and catchy sound. Some good examples are Coca-Cola, M&M's, Chupa-Chups, Shake'n'bake, etc. The name Motorola is also a combination of consonant words. According to one version, this is a derivative of "motor" – car and "ola" – sound. The phrase turned out to be simple and easy to pronounce, both in the West and the East.

Allusion

You can also generate a name by modifying a well-known concept, alluding to a literary or historical source, drawing parallels, and analogies. For example, the name Lady X is derived from the well-known Mr. X, and the name of the musical group Brothers Grimm is the surname of the storytellers. The international network of small markets 7-Eleven has the same origin. From the first glance, the buyer knew that the store was open from 7 to 11. By the way, this was one of the reasons for the popularity of the market.

Analogy

By choosing the right association, stereotype or template with which the company is associated, you may not only get high-quality naming, but also win on quick recognition. Get inspired by various historical or film characters, names of plants or animals, planets, etc. For example, Red Bull, Puma, Jaguar refer to the features the product is characterized by. In addition, the name of Bounty chocolate was born from the name of the archipelago of Bounty islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Acronyms

Abbreviations are often found in brands that operate in international markets. This method is especially effective if there is no way to avoid long names. In this case, take advantage of abbreviations. Good examples are IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd), BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke AG), or NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

7 Rules of a Good Name for Your Brand

Once you`ve generated a list of ideas, you need to assess them. But how to know if the name is great? Here are 7 features of an ideal name for startups.

Clear

Try to avoid uncertainty. Of course, there are cases when it worked but, typically, customers get puzzled seeing weird names. Ideally, it should correspond to your company`s field of activity. For example, a brand with the name YumMy immediately suggests food associations. If you give such a name to a company offering laptops, it can sound ridiculous and will certainly confuse potential customers.

Selling

The name of your company needs to be not only understandable, but also "telling". In other words, it should describe your industry, attitude, and approach to business.

This does not mean that the name has to contain the designation of the product or service you offer. It should unobtrusively convey the essence, experience, and advantages of your business. For example, the name of the online retailer Amazon evokes associations with large-scale growth and complexity of services.

Catchy

It is not so easy for the human brain to remember names and titles. Why? Because the brain stores names in short-term, or operational, memory. It can be compared to the work of a computer. It can store up-to-date information only for a short time. If you open too many tabs, the system will start to unravel.

To make the name stay in the memory, companies have to “deceive" the brain. How? It is necessary that the brand name is associated with a certain feeling, attitude or emotion. Make it short, unique, and containing familiar words or sounds.

Trendy

If you want to grab the attention of youth, your brand name should be relevant. However, be careful here and do not get too carried away with buzzwords. Why? Because what is fashionable today may become obsolete tomorrow. And you need a name that will sound relevant in at least the next five years.

Unique

The name of your company should be one of a kind, and there are sound justifications for this. There is no doubt that such a name will firmly stick in the memory of potential customers. Of course, we are not talking about shocking and beyond reasonable options.

The commercial reasons are no less compelling than the physiological ones. When a new company enters the market, it begins to compete with other companies for its target audience. If a newly minted brand fails to attract the attention of potential customers, it is doomed to failure.

Appropriate

Sounds quite obvious, doesn`t it? But the thing is that the brand name should not just be attractive in general, but meet the likes of your target audience.

As we`ve mentioned above, before choosing a name for your startup, think about the people you are targeting. What language do they speak? What style do they follow? How old are they? What is their income? Education? Level of development? Interests? Religious views? Consider as many factors as possible to get straight to the point.

Meaningful

Some people give their companies completely meaningless names and slogans. By choosing fancy (Yahoo, Google, Fogdog) or created from scratch (Novartis, Aventis, Lycos) words, you are taking a big risk. Think about how your name will be taken in different countries. It is not uncommon for the company's name to evoke negative or even obscene associations among representatives of other cultures.

Conclusion

When doing business, you can change a lot of things, from a marketing strategy to product range. But the name is chosen once and for all. This is what will follow your startup from the very beginning till the end. Therefore, your brand`s name should not only correspond to the above-mentioned characteristics, but also appeal to you. If you love it, you have all chances to make others love it as well.