How to Name Your Blog or Business

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Blogging tools laying on a marble countertop

I have a passion for naming things. Children, cocktails, crayon colors. I used to joke that my dream job would be creating and naming new nail polish colors. I mean, come ON! How fun would that be? So it’s only fitting that I love talking about how to name your blog or business.

I think it’s a fascinating study of people and the work that they want to put into the world. That being said, it can also be a really frustrating and difficult thing for some people to nail down — there’s a lot wrapped up in that one decision and sometimes that can paralyze you. So to help, we’ve got a list of things to consider when you’re figuring out how to name your blog or business. See if any of these tricks help you!

How to Name Your Blog or Business

Have Clarity about Your Brand

I think that the very base level starting point of naming your blog needs to be a clear vision of what exactly your brand is. Are you selling something? Are you aimed at a certain demographic or niche? What is your brand’s purpose? Who is your ideal client or reader? What will be unique about your blog or business? Use all of these questions and more to help guide you to really know your brand inside and out.

Use a Flash Brainstorm Session

Once you feel like your brand vision is as clear as a bell, do a flash brainstorm session. Grab a few sheets of paper or your favorite notebook (I really prefer writing this kind of stuff to typing — I feel like it inspires creativity) and a pen. Set a timer for five minutes. During those five minutes, write down ANY word that comes to mind about your brand. Do not censor yourself! If a word comes up that you don’t like, write it down anyway. If the same word comes up multiple times, write it down every time you think of it. There are no wrong answers or wrong words at this point. When the five minutes is up, stop. Go do something else for a while.

Narrow Down

After you have some time away from your brainstorm, the real work comes. Go back to your brainstorm list and start narrowing down. I like to begin by crossing off any word that I can’t see becoming a permanent part of my brand’s identity. If there are any words that just rub you the wrong way, cross those off too. Chances are, soon you’ll start to see your favorites emerge.

From here, narrow down as much as you can. As you work through this process, a few new words might come to you. Jot them down and include them if you like. You can also start jotting down full names that might pop up, or combining words to make a blog or business name. Experiment with all of this.

Toward the end of this process you will probably find that you’re left with a list of a few full blog or business names that you would actually consider using. Keep that list and mull it over for a few days, or even a week. See if your feelings toward them change over time.

What NOT to Do When You’re Naming Your Blog or Business

One caution — be careful not to ask too many people their opinions. This can be a recipe for confusion and waffling. Soon you might find that you’re no longer trusting your gut, but instead putting the decision entirely into the hands of others. The general public’s opinion matters, but yours matters more. This brand will be your baby! Choose a few trusted, close friends or family and run it by them if you like. But we’d recommend stopping there. Trust your intuition beyond that.

Leave Some Wiggle Room (If You Like)

If your blog, business, or the services you provide will be extremely niche (think “vegan cupcake blog” or “baby onesie business”), then chances are you can choose a pretty specific name for your brand and it will stand the test of time. But! If your brand is more broad (like a lifestyle blog or something similar), then you may want to consider a name that doesn’t pigeonhole you into one niche. As an example, say you have a parenting blog that you want to name Popsicles & Party Hats (hey, that’s kind of cute!). I’m guessing that people would see that name and assume that the blog was mostly about kids’ parties. You don’t want to shoo away potential readers or customers with a name that might not accurately describe your content or product.

Consider the Future

Blogs, businesses, and brands all grow with us as we evolve as people. So as you’re considering your final name, be sure to also consider that your brand may want to grow and change along with you. This is another instance where it’s smart to leave a little wiggle room for your brand to change, just in case you eventually branch into another area of business. If our fake parenting blog, Popsicles & Party Hats, wants to start covering teen issues or topics for college-bound families, the name might hinder that evolution a little.

How do We Feel about Our Name?

This is something I’ve considered a lot over the years. I initially wanted to name Lovely Indeed “The Lovely Life,” but that was taken. Truly, that’s the only reason we ended up calling ourselves Lovely Indeed. These days, I truly love it. I feel like it embodies who we are and what we want to accomplish. That being said, there were a few years where I was dangerously close to changing it because I didn’t feel like it was a representation of where we were going. I’m so glad we stuck with it, because it has ended up to feel just right, like an old friend. It’s flexible enough to allow our brand to shift a bit, but always embodies the feeling and the sentiment that I hope to share with the world.

Phew, this is a long one! Hope you’ve found some inspiration here. Are you starting a business or a blog? I’d love to know — share your story in the comments below! And if you have a blog or a business, share your name and how you came to choose it! xoxo

P.S. Have you seen our post on how bloggers make money? It’s a total eye-opener!

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5 Comments

  1. This has been a big hang up for me! Do I just use my name… what if I end up stuck with a name I hate after a week… lol. These are some great ideas! Especially since I’m hung up on the branding piece too, as my varied interests have me worried I have to pigeonhole myself into one or two photography genres. Thanks for this post, I’ll keep plugging away!

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  3. Thank you for this. I’m mulling things in the background so much that it never makes It to the foreground. Sigh. Committing to a brainstorm and the process! (Wish me luck!)

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