What Should You Call Your New Business? How to Come Up with a Brand Name in 7 Steps

Choosing a good brand name is a lot more than making sure it sounds impressive. There is a lot that goes into it. After all, the name of your business is a key part of your brand identity. It needs to communicate your intended message to your potential customers, and it’s these customers that you need to have in mind at all times.

It’s your customers who will be talking about your brand, recommending you, and searching for you, so something memorable, easy to pronounce, and which resonates with your target audience is an absolute must.

That still doesn’t mean that it’s easy to find the perfect business name, however. Curious to know more about how to come up with a brand name that ticks all the boxes? You may need to explore several options to find the right brand name, using generators, or even paying marketing professionals to do the legwork for you.

Or, you may have a burst of inspiration and find the right brand name on the first go. Coming up with a brand name is a unique experience for any business, and often the journey to finding one can become a significant part of your brand story.

What Makes a Great Brand Name?

This is completely personal to the business itself. There’s no right or wrong, but it can be one of the most important decisions your business can make with its branding. There may be some brand names out there that make you wonder how they even came up with that, and there might be others that you wish you would’ve thought of first!

Exploring the different ways to come up with a brand name may initially see you facing off against competitors and finding a name that doesn’t already exist and which is better than the rest.

The following steps will help you understand what makes a great brand name and how to develop a brand name that works for you.

How to Come Up with a Brand Name in 7 Steps

Here are some important steps when deciding how to come up with a brand name.

Step 1: Think of the Basics

When finding a brand name that works for you, you may want to start off simply generating some ideas. Think of what your brand is and the type of industry you’re in. You may want to describe your product or service in the brand name to easily communicate what it is on a very basic level. Basic doesn’t mean a bad brand name, after all, as long as it easily communicates what you do.

Brand giant Coca-Cola was named after two key ingredients during its original launch: cocaine and caffeine. The former was gained from the coca leaf, and the latter was gained from the kola nut — which was also referred to as the cola nut. Hence, Coca-Cola was born. It happens to help that Coca-Cola is very catchy and memorable to say, too. Now, you might be thinking, “how do I come up with a brand name like Coca-Cola?” Well, when it comes down to it, one of the biggest brand names is simply a combination of two main ingredients.

With this in mind, if your product is a food or drink item, you may want to explore that, too.

Step 2: Use Brand Name Generation

You may need a helping hand when it comes to naming your brand. With so many options out there, it’s natural to turn to a tool that generates a list of suitable options for you. It may even be that using a company name generator doesn’t give you the name you’re looking for, but the results suddenly inspire the perfect name for you, which you think of yourself in a moment of enlightenment.

Shopify’s business name generator is just one of the great options out there for using a brand name generator, and it’s free to use.

Step 3: Define What You Are

It will be difficult to understand how to develop a brand name if you’re not fully sure what your business is yet. Getting to know your brand is a key part of your brand strategy so that you can define your message, your values, your story, and your product or service. Once you’re fully aware of your brand personality and what you need to be within the consumer market, you can work on creating brand name ideas that fit that vision.

Step 4: Make Sure It’s Easy to Spell

In this day and age, at the height of technology, in the online world, and on social media, you need consumers to be able to easily search for your business name or product by typing it in online. That means that even if your brand name is catchy and fun to say, if it’s difficult to spell, you could run into some online problems, especially if you’re an online store that depends on website visitors.

It’s always extremely likely that Google or other search engines will make suggestions if brand names are spelled wrong, but if you’re a new small business that hasn’t yet made maximum impact online, search engines may not yet be prepared to suggest your correct business name. It’s even more essential to be found via search engines through SEO when you’re a new business, so having something which is easy to spell the first try when deciding on your brand name is encouraged.

Step 5: Make it Catchy

The most memorable brand names are the catchy ones that stick in consumer’s minds. How you can do this depends more on the sounds of the name rather than the name itself. You may want to think about assonance, consonance, alliteration, and rhyming words.

As mentioned, Coca-Cola is a catchy brand name based on the alliteration and repetition of sounds. In being catchy, it may also need to be short and succinct, but if your brand name needs to be longer, as long as it’s memorable, it can work.

Step 6: Use a Branding Agency

If you’re not naturally equipped to understand the naming process in a crowded market, it’s always encouraged to get design and branding assistance from professional brand strategists who know how to come up with a brand name that ticks the boxes. Using branding agency services can be a big help in exploring your brand identity, brainstorming some ideas and having expert input into what you’re trying to accomplish with your brand name.

Step 7: Allow it to Stand the Test of Time

Your name needs to fit with your future vision as much as the present. If you select a brand name that is only relevant for the here and now, you will risk running into future problems. While it can be tempting to choose a brand name that fits with current trends or something very specific in your current time of business, it also needs to still be relevant in years to come. Therefore, having a broader perspective when considering your brand name will help you to know what will work for any generation.

Your Brand Name is Up to You

No matter how you choose to find the perfect business name, it’s all part of your brand journey and can be an enjoyable experience to find one which fits and becomes your valuable business name for years to come.

As a branding agency, the team at Anthem is ready to assist with any branding needs, and when you’ve found the perfect brand name, we can help create the merchandise to fit.