How to Choose Successful Business Names in 8 Steps

To differentiate your businesses from the competition it is vital that you choose good company names. These are clear indicators of success, and as if that were not enough, they help you successfully gain market penetration.

Creating a company requires a lot of work, and believe it or not, choosing a name is one of the most demanding tasks to be carried out during the preliminary phase.

In short, you must put a lot of effort into choosing good names, or else you will run the risk that customers will not capture the essence of your business, much less be interested in your offer.

Don’t underestimate the power of good company names:

In this article we will explain how to choose good company names and what elements you should take into account to do this job successfully.

Did you know that today you can rely on software and technological tools to choose company names that might not have occurred to you so easily?

In this guide we will also share some business name generators with which you can give your companies more personality and character.

Without a doubt, these name generators are very valuable digital tools that you should use at your convenience.

How to choose a name for a company?

To choose good company names you will have to invest time and effort, since it is not a task that you will solve overnight.

Brand Institute, which leads the global market for brand development and identity, highlights on its website that “a unique name is the basis of your brand identity.”

Believe it or not, the name of your company represents its most relevant brand element, as this will be the one that your potential consumers will most remember and associate with your company, product or service.

Next we will tell you how to choose a good name for your company:

1. Identify your company and then choose the name

Choosing a name for your company represents a crucial decision (it will define how your customers will perceive your company).

The first step is to identify your identity, which involves the following aspects:

Research who your ideal audience is – that is, who will be interested and willing to buy your products or services?
Define your values and your company culture.
Develop a good mission and vision.
Ask yourself what kind of company or brand you want to create.

Once you have defined all these factors you are ready to brainstorm. The strategy of brainstorming It will help you identify profitable business names, or those that have a strong and favorable identity.

2. Think of short and unique names

An article published by Forbes on the factors that will help you choose the ideal name for your business, reveals that you should forget about descriptive names.

Previously, entrepreneurs or businessmen made an effort because the names of their companies clearly said what they did. However, times have changed, and it is no longer mandatory to use your company name to explicitly describe your activity.

This is a clear example of success:

Microsoft is one of the best examples of successful companies we can give you around descriptive names.

It arose as a result of a combination and abbreviation of two terms: MICROcomputer + SOFTware = Microsoft (so that the name perfectly describes what this technological giant does).

But the truth is that today you have more creative freedom when choosing names that capture the attention of your target audience without having to tell them exactly what they do.

All you have to do is use your intelligence to propose short or unique names that allow you to exalt your brand identity like an expert.

Is it in trend to choose short names?

Not only is it in trend, but at an advertising or marketing level, short names play a strategic role.

Indeed, these types of company names are easier to position in search engines, and also enjoy greater traction on social platforms.

In addition, it is very likely that these names will be available to be used -in terms of registrations, domains and users-, since they will be 100% authentic and original.

3. Check that the name is easy to pronounce

Good company names have one thing in common: they are easy to read and pronounce.

A good idea to check that your options meet these parameters is to ask several people – who have not been immersed in the selection process – to read or pronounce them out loud to detect possible flaws or complications.

If all goes well, that is, if they have no problems performing this assignment, then you will have done a great job.

However, if they have difficulty pronouncing them, or if they simply have no idea how to do it, you will have to start from scratch until everything flows positively.

4. Think “beyond the dictionary”

Going to the dictionary used to be a common practice when searching for successful business names.

Tom Shapiroone of the representatives of stratabeat, which is a successful agency that promotes B2B companies, considers this to be a big mistake in the modern age.

In his opinion, what you really should do these days is think of a name that is not defined in the dictionary.

Therefore, this name will be attributed to your intellectual property, and will also allow you to highlight the differentiating elements of your brand clearly and correctly.

Avoid headaches:

Additionally, it will save you headaches when buying a domain name, or creating your accounts on social networks, since no one else will have used it.

Another important tip is to choose company names that are attractive to your audience.

YouTube, LinkedIn, Telegram and Google are some examples of short and unique names that have become trademarks with almost stratospheric levels of success.

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What should you take into account to choose a good name?

We have just shared with you four important tips for choosing company names when starting a business.

Most of them are associated with advertising or branding. Now we want to address the technical details that also play a vital role in this whole process.

5. Analyze your competition

The wisest thing you can do when working on creating company names is to analyze and study your competition.

The reason is simple: you will know what they are doing and you will even have an idea of what their creators went through to start businesses that would help them achieve financial freedom.

However, remember that you must be very careful because it is not about imitating their processes, much less copying their names or ideas.

For this reason, we recommend that you do not risk carrying out these unethical practices, since you would be approaching imminent failure.

You must be clear that researching the competition should only serve to create a completely new and original product.

6. Check name availability

Don’t think the job ends with coming up with potential company names that you find unique, short, and catchy.

In fact, this process would not be complete if you do not make sure to check that your options are available to be used legally.

Basically you need to make sure that these names are not registered on the Internet, and that they have some free domain.

Once you verify the availability of the domain and decide to buy it, you should investigate whether or not there is a brand with the same name in the country where you will operate the business.

The most practical and safest way to do this is by reviewing the patent and trademark portals in your place of residence. If the name you are interested in has already been assigned to another brand, product or service, you should change it as soon as possible.

Otherwise, you could face serious and important problems in the future (including legal actions such as lawsuits).

You will also be forced to spend a lot of money to change the branding or the identity of the brand, and the worst case is that your audience could reject all these changes.

7. Conduct a market study

Doing a market study will be very useful when starting your own business.

This is something you can do yourself, but if you feel you don’t have the time or expertise to do it efficiently, you might want to hire an expert.

Recommended books:

The information that this market research will give you will be very useful when coming up with short, unique and original company names.

This way your customers will be able to read them and associate them with your brand easily, which will help you keep it in their top of mind during years.

8. Top Business Name Generators

Without a doubt, by choosing good names for companies in an organic or natural way, you will be stimulating your creativity to the maximum.

Even so, we would like to remind you that there are currently tools and software specially designed to help you with this process, since they make it more efficient.

We are talking about business name generators. Here we will list the most important ones:

Shopify Business Name Generator:

This is a free tool developed by Shopify that automatically combines your keyword – the one you have associated with your business – with other commonly used words.

You can use it to create company names related to your niche, or to verify that their domains are available on the Internet.

NameMesh:

With this generator you will be able to search and create company names based on numerous categories.

This tool is responsible for grouping your keywords with the ones it has in its database –more than six million-, and in the end it generates a very extensive and interesting list of business names.

Read Domain Search:

If you are interested in investigating what domains are available on the web in an easy, fast and reliable way, you can use Lean Domain Search.

This business name generator matches your keyword with other words, and then sorts the results by length, popularity, or alphabetical order.

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Wordoid:

This smart tool lists random names that are characterized by being creative, disruptive, unique and original.

You can enter your keywords and Wordoid will take care of creating a more complex, attractive list completely adjusted to your needs or requirements. branding.

And this will be very positive for you if you are still not very clear about what business to set up, much less what to call it.