Finding business name ideas: 5 questions for you

In the 2010 movie The Social Network, which chronicled Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to billionaire superstardom and messy legal battles creating Facebook, there’s a key moment that demonstrates the spontaneity of generating business name ideas:Napster founder Sean Parker is leaving a restaurant when he drops what co-founder Eduardo Savarin calls ‘His biggest contribution to the company’. Parker says to ‘Drop the “the”. Just “Facebook”. It’s cleaner.’ Sometimes finding the right company name is decided by the universe. You may do all your research and piece together what you believe is the perfect name encompassing everything your company stands for, when somebody or something gives you that last bit of advice and suddenly everything slots into place. While we can’t give you the Sean Parker lightbulb moment, what we will do in this blog post is take you through some of the most important questions you should ask yourself when searching for startup names. Asking the right questions will help you consider your brand name ideas from all angles, think critically about your choices, and make sure you’ve ticked all the legal boxes, too. 

Psychologically speaking, brand names register a more emotional response than other nouns. While we process most language in the rational, right side of the brain, brand names pass through the emotional, left side. The effect is simply that, in the same way we have emotional responses to the names of our friends and family members, the same thing happens with brands. We associate them with experiences and people and memories.Think about some of the brand names with emotional resonance: does ‘Coca-Cola’ remind you of summer? ‘Tinder’ of bad dates and good ones? Your startup name should stick uniquely in the consumer’s mind even more than a personal name. This is because while many share the same first name, no one else will have your company name.Let’s go through some of the questions that will help you on your journey to that perfect, resonant business name.   

Catchiness might seem like an ineffable quality, like the persistence of a catchy tune to stick in your head all day long. But just as pop songs and jingles are constructed methodically with rhythms and intervals, a winning company or brand name has its own rules and guidelines. Breaking down the mechanics of catchy business name ideas is about paying attention to what makes language pop, while still staying truthful to your brand’s vision. 

Peculiar spellings, lengthy names, and unnecessary additions will all detract from your startup name’s potential to take up space rent-free in your customer’s head. Think about Parker’s contribution to Facebook again: how many successful modern company names contain articles ‘the’, ‘an’, or ‘a’? They’re rarely used because they clutter up the name. ‘Facebook’ is the unique part; ‘the’ is meaningless filler. 

Ideally, lots of people will be saying your brand name out loud. Apps are part of everyday conversation. We ask each other which dating app we’re using, which banking service provider our friends use, what’s that app called that tells you which song is playing, and everybody responds immediately because the name is on the tip of their tongues. Part of achieving this is to consider the physicality of your business name ideas—how does it sound when you say it?Listen to how ‘Tik Tok’ sounds when it’s said. It’s alliterative with adjacent Ts and Ks, and it resembles the near universal linguistic representation of a ticking clock. Lots of companies use alliteration with consonants to ring in the user’s mind like a catchy jingle: Bumble, Vivino, PayPal.  

Your business name should reflect the goals you have in mind and how you wish to carry out those goals. Puns and joke names may not be appropriate for businesses where trust is a major concern, such as in the finance and mental health sectors. Treat your company name like your dress sense: it should convey you, not anybody else.  

The use of metaphor in company names is no accident. Founders pick startup names which often don’t at all refer to the product or service they provide. This is because they want to keep open the possibility of expansion into other areas. Facebook’s rebranding to Meta reflects the company’s move away from the previously descriptive name to a multi-service monopoly with heavy investment in VR and the metaverse. 

Culture, both modern and classic, is a treasure trove of inspiration for business name ideas. Go back to your favourite books and movies, your cherished childhood fables, the historical events that stayed with you since you learned about them in high school.Nike made the bold choice of choosing the Greek goddess of victory as the name of their sports footwear—and it worked. Nike footwear is worn by world-famous athletes and frequently seen kicking goals, sinking baskets, and winning grand slams. Nike had the vision of being worn by winners. They chose a name to reflect that. 

Researching your startup name goes beyond seeking cultural inspiration. You’ll use this name for your website, branding, SEO relevance, and local registry. This is where practicality and originality come together. You need a name that stands out for the right reasons and stays relevant. 

If your brand name ideas are too generic, they might already be taken as a domain name. There are more new startups than ever before, meaning that good, original startup names worth their weight in gold if they double as a domain name. You don’t want to come up with the perfect name for your company, only to have it already taken as a domain name.Also consider how much your choice of domain matters. For instance, if you want a ‘.com’ you’re going to have more competition for your company’s website name than if you choose .net, .io., .biz, etc. You may be able to buy your chosen .com domain name but this adds another expense to your entrepreneurial venture.

Before they arrive at it, people are going to be searching for your website. You want this process to be as smooth as possible. Ensure the findability of your business by picking an SEO-friendly domain name with the following characteristics: 

Check the regional laws for domain name registration and business registration so you don’t run into any legal trouble down the road. This will mean checking the registry for similarly-named or businesses with the same name in your country or local area to make sure you’re not accidentally encroaching on anyone’s territory. 

If you are registering your business in Germany, the .de domain name is the second most popular domain name worldwide. This will lend considerable credit to your business’s domain name, however there will be a great deal of competition for an original name, similar to the .com domain. 

The latest amendment to the business legislation on company names in Germany states that German companies entered into the trade register must be derived from the business’s objectives, proper, or invented names.You will also have to choose between the following German company name appendices: 

Your company name shouldn’t be misleading and should also be unique among other companies in Germany. You won’t need to register with a company name if you’re a sole trader, so in this case you’ll just be using your name for your activities. Decide whether this suits you, or you would like to have a unique company name. 

This question brings us full circle back to The Social Network. Whether the film’s apocryphal Sean Parker anecdote is true or not, it raises a good point about the importance of feedback at the naming stage of business formation. When others first hear your business name ideas, they won’t have all the associations you have, nor the same train of thought which led you to that name. They’ll provide a fresh perspective with their own cultural knowledge and the name will sound different to them than it does to anyone else. 

Jeff Bezos of Amazon apparently wanted to name his global online marketplace Cadabra because when you order something, ‘abra cadabra’ it appears like magic on your doorstep. It was only after a lawyer floated the idea that ‘Cadabra’ sort of sounds like ‘cadaver’, which isn’t the most ideal association for a company delivering products to its customers’ houses.Consult your friends and family (and anyone who will listen to your pitch) for any potentially damaging associations they might come up with when they hear your name. You not only might dodge a particularly embarrassing bullet, but you might end up with a far better name as a result of it. 

Taking suggestions is good and remaining open to new ideas is beneficial in entrepreneurship, but in the end this is your (and perhaps also your founders’) company name. If you like the name more than anyone else does, this is good. Your company name might stick with you throughout your career, and you want to make sure it represents you, that you’re comfortable with it, and that you like the sound of it. 

It might seem like a small part of business formation to some people, but a lot of thought and research goes into picking the right company name. Hopefully this blog post has shown that company name ideas come from many different angles and sources of inspiration, and that as much as it shouldn’t be taken lightly, it should be a fun part of starting your own business, too.