OUTLINE
- Introduction
- What is a Business Name?
- Why You Should Get it Right the First Time
- 8 Business Naming Mistakes People Make
- 8 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Business Name
- Number of Companies Registered in 2017 (Australia)
- 10 Quick Ways to Generate Great Business Name Ideas in Minutes
- Conclusion
Source: Pixabay
Introduction
How to come up with a business name idea for your business or how to choose a business name from several suggestions can be a knotty subject for some.
Many business owners especially serial entrepreneurs tend to skip this all essential step as they rush to kick start their next business project. I’ll come back to it they’ll say but end up picking anything along the way. Sometimes they look back and can’t really find a rationale for their choice.
Some have registered a business or company name only for the business to expand and now they find they need to register a new business name to accommodate growth. Stressful isn’t it? But with proper advance planning this and other business naming mistakes can be prevented or minimized.
In this article we take an in depth look at business naming plus all the essential factors that can help you select a good business name for your business in minutes, but first,
What Is a Business Name?
You see it in business cards, TV commercials, billboards, flyers, t-shirts, name it.
Source: Pixabay
According to Wikipedia, a business name, a.k.a trade name or trading name is a pseudonym used by a company to perform its business activity under a name that differs from the registered, legal name of the company.
Depending on country, trade names are designated with the following abbreviations and phrases: t/a or T/A (trading as), dba (doing business as), o/a (operating as), etc.
Why You Should Get it Right the First Time
Getting your business name right the first time can save you headaches down the line. Changing your business or company name will involve legal legwork and paperwork like change of letterhead, logo, colors, stamps and seals, etc.
There are many examples of company rebranding fails that teach us important lessons about getting it right the first time.
8 Business Naming Mistakes People Make
There are a number of mistakes to avoid when looking for a business name. Some of them are:
- copying popular company names
- not trademarking registered names
- not acquiring associated domain names
- not anticipating growth and expansion
- not considering customers from other cultures or locations
- not considering SEO
- choosing hard to spell names
- using special letters or characters not easily available, etc
8 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Business Name
Before you set out to choose a name for your business there are key things to consider like the following:
- identify your business goals and objectives, vision and mission
- strive for name-goal alignment
- include relevant industry keywords
- make tagline follow name naturally
- aim for unique name
- ease of spelling for search, word of mouth, etc
- SEO
- meaning of name in other cultures or languages
And here are
Number of Companies Registered in 2017 (Australia)
Every year millions of new companies and businesses are registered globally. The following table shows number of companies registered in Australia in 2017.
Source: ASIC
From the table we see that a total of 250, 897 new companies were registered in 2017, an average of 20, 908 new companies every month.
Each of these newly registered companies or businesses has a unique name. How do people come up with so many business names, are there still any more business names available?
In the following section we’ll see
10 Quick Ways to Come Up With Unique Business Name Ideas in Minutes.
The key words here are unique business name ideas because you don’t want to sound exactly like others.
Here’s how to generate unique business name ideas
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Business Name Generators
A business name generator or company name generator is a tool that helps you generate relevant business or company name ideas in minutes as well as check for domain availability e.g Shopify Business Name Generator.
You type in a keyword you want in your business name and hit search. Relevant suggestions are returned. You make your pick, refine your search or extend to other business naming methods listed below.
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Crowd Sourcing
Crowd sourcing is great for business name generation. Your business naming project is posted to the “crowd” with sufficient details, talented freelance professionals submit entries. A good example is CrowdSpring.
You screen and make your best selection. You can ask for revisions or as stated above, try other business naming methods below.
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Quora
This popular Q&A forum is great for finding answers to just about any subject matter under the sun.
All you have to do is simply ask with all the necessary background information and you may have a business name in minutes or again check below.
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Fiverr
Fiverr is a large marketplace for services starting at $5. One of the many other services on offer is business naming.
You post a job request, or browse freelancers and contact the ones offering business naming services.
Make sure to ask for past work samples to ascertain freelancer’s true skill level.
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Social Media
Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or others, you can solicit for business name suggestions from people in your network.
This can generate tens or hundreds of responses from which you can select and adopt or further work on using more methods below.
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Polls
Tools like Facebook Polls can help you sample opinions from your Facebook connections or groups you belong to.
With Facebook Polls you can get more valuable feedback, because the process is more guided and can be measured.
Simply ask structured leading questions and you’ll likely be led to a good business name.
Or ask
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Friends and Family
Friends and family can be a source of startup funding as well as startup or business naming.
These people know you deeply and will be better able to suggest business names that resonate with what you have in mind or who you are.
They likely know you so well and what you’ll like, so pay attention. They can also help critique your business name ideas from other sources.
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Playing Scrabble
Scrabble is all about words. If you’re looking for a good business name, then you should look at your Scrabble board.
As you play the word game expect to see pop up ideas that leap at you as words make their rounds across the board.
You’ll be surprised at what you see.
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Acronyms
With acronyms you pick out first letters of words and make up new words that either sound like a comprehensive word or abbreviations.
You can pick out the keywords in your business’ vision, mission or objectives. Arrange them in a number of ways and see what comes up. It could be a good business name.
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Meditation
Meditation is a powerful means of generating ideas, company name ideas inclusive.
Combined with brainstorming this can produce many ideas for business names that you can use immediately as well as for future business pursuits.
Go with a goal, pen and paper when you meditate, and you can come up with the next best company name.
Conclusion
In any case, always conduct a business name availability search to confirm availability of any business name you come up with manually. If taken, try the next method until you find one.
With softwares and tools like business name generators this process is automated and can show if corresponding domain names are also available.
Author Bio
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