Guidelines for Naming Your Startup Business

Choosing the most appropriate name for your startup can have a major affirmative impact on the success of your business. A wrong name can be unsuccessful to attach with customers leading to loss and legal hurdles.  

A comprehensible and influential name is very useful to enhance your advertising and branding efforts. This article covers 8 useful guidelines for naming your startup business.

1. Decide a suitable company name to convey a clear message to the audience.

The identity of your company is determined by its name that appears on your letterhead, website, and business cards, etc. The products and services offered by your company can be easily identified by a simple and relevant business name.

 For instance, Bright Accounting and Hampshire Taxi names refer to accounting and taxi booking services respectively in the UK. It becomes easy for potential customers to be familiar with the services provided by these businesses.

 2. Conjure up to spot a promising name.

Spend some time to brainstorm and realize what exactly you want the name to communicate. Patiently observe the words that distinguish your products/services with competitors. Choose the words describing the advantages of availing your company’s products/services.

You can take the help of a dictionary or online resources like thesaurus to find an awesome and unique name for your startup business.

3. Keep the name short and simple to remember.

Think about the names of businesses you like and also note their acronyms. For example, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM are short and sweet names. On the other hand, long names are hard to remember. Don’t use “K” in place of a “Q” that makes the spelling more difficult.

It will be quite easy for customers to spell your company name when you use acronyms. For instance, Amazon Web Services is known by its acronym AWS and has good fame across the globe.

 4. Check your startup name with others.

It’s enticing to engage your employees and friends to suggest a name for your company. This may or may not work out well as it can disappoint some people if you reject their suggested names thinking that these are not a good fit.

You can choose some people who have a great understanding of your business concerns to find a proper name. Now different brains will suggest your vivid names and there will be also some variety. You can then pick the name that fits best for your business.

5. Be cautious with geographic names.

If your startup is meant only for local business then you can include your city or state name can also be a part of your business name. For example, the name Riverside Automobile Manufactures is fine because this business is focused on Riverside.

Later on, if you plan to extend your business, you have to find a new name again for your business that would be troublesome. This means that you have to be cautious with such geographical names and the best thing is to choose indisputable names like Genus Power Infrastructures, OXO Car Care, etc.

 6. Avoid vague words.

Organization names like Google provoke people to tell stories that can be influential and unforgettable. But vague words or hints might be complicated to spell.  Be particularly aware when you want to target a massive audience on the internet.

There are exceptions where incomprehensible or discovered names work well. For instance, Xerox is a name that is well-known everywhere but this often needs a large marketing budget and extraordinary effort.

7. Stay away from trends.

Every business wants to grow as per the emerging trends, so be alert to spot the trends and avoid following them to name your business. For instance, there was a trend to use a .com suffix with the company name in the late 1990s. Later on, people thought that such companies have very little or no business model. Then those companies eliminated .com from their names to maintain the growth.

 8. Think if you can register a domain and get a trademark.

It’s vital to ensure that you do not pick the same name used by your business competitors. It’s not rare to uncover alike names in distinct industries. This can lead to confusion among your prospective clients if your competitor’s names are also similar.

To avoid any legal and copy write issues, you must get a trademark fortification for your startup business name.