Selecting a Company Name
Selecting a company name can be difficult and time consuming. Getting it right is important but remember it is possible to change the company name in the future though it will require additional work and may be somewhat costly. Early-stage companies often stall trying to find the perfect name but you can file a "Doing Business As" statement or even change the company's name if necessary in the future. Filing a "Doing Business As" (also known as a "Fictitious Name") statement generally costs between $10-100. That said, ideally you would get the name right from the beginning.
Do-It Yourself?
The first choice is whether you should do it by yourself or whether you should enlist the help of a third party. If you have the budget, ad agencies, naming specialists or consultants can be very helpful in generating lots of good ideas, using a broader set of tools and techniques to identify appropriate names and providing you with experienced and objective judgment in selecting names. However, we have seen ad agencies succeed and fail in finding great business names. We still joke about an ad agency that suggested that an early-stage technology company adopt the name "SkySteer." I think that they meant to convey something like "steering wheel in the sky" but we couldn't help envisioning cows floating in the sky.
The Basics
While it may seem obvious there are a number of basic points about selecting a name that bear repeating:
- Most experts feel that you should choose a name that directly relates to your business though some also feel a "blank canvas name" that allows you to create meaning can work as well
- Make sure that the name is easy to pronounce
- Choose a name that looks good in print
- Ensure the name has no negative connotations, even in other languages
additional insights
- Start with your core values and purpose. The greatest companies seem to develop from the passion of the entrepreneurial founders. Think about what drives you, what makes you passionate about your company. This should form the root of why you think you are different and why you think that you have something great to offer. Tap into that passion to create a philosophy and purpose for your company. Once you have this purpose nailed down you should be able to establish a Big Hairy Audacious Goal as described by the Management Gury Jim Collins in his seminal Harvard Business Review article "Building Your Company's Vision." These things together can often give you your best ideas for a name. Amazon.com wanted to become the biggest online bookstore in the world. It choose its name based on the largest river in the world, the Amazon River in Brazil.
- Use stories to get inspired. Sometimes you can find a great story that goes well with your company's purpose and goals and take a key prhase or word from that story. For example, the company Starbuck's got its name from a character in the classic story Moby Dick. Sometimes you can even create a name based on a fictional character like Trader Joe's.
- Check for domain names early. If an Internet presence is going to be important to you (including the domain part of your e-mail address) and it probably should be, you may want to start by checking to see if you will be able to secure a domain name for your company first. This can be helpful because it will immediately limit the number of names to consider. Domain names on the Internet have been selling rapidly for nearly two decades now so it is very difficult to find short names that are availble. Great, short ".com" domain names cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we have personally generally avoided it, more and more people are buying sites ending in ".biz," ".net," etc. to keep costs down. You can get a rough sense for the pricing of existing domain names by looking at the domain name auction sites like this one at GoDaddy. GoDaddy, Dotster, Bluehost and many others will sell you new domain names. A good idea is to start collecting good domain names in advance of starting your business. Having a great site name can increase your web traffic. For example, Early Stage Legal comes up as the number #1 site in Google for the search term "early stage legal" which is a term that replies to an entire sub-industry in the large US legal services market.
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Use online naming tools to generate ideas. There are increasingly good sources of naming ideas on the web. Here are some online tools to help you identify good names:
- Thesaurus.com. This is a good resource for helping to identify groups of words around a theme that you are trying to highlight in your name.
- Greek and Latin roots. There are a number of sites online that contain lists of Greek and Latin roots if you are looking for a name that is meaningful but somewhat more abstract. We have highlighted here a link to Wikipedia's list of Greek and Latin roots.
- Online naming tools. While we haven't found these sites to be terribly effective, they offer tools that will generate lists of potential names for you. It may spur your own creativity.
- Take a page from a competitor or similar company in a different industry. Sometimes you can get inspired for your name by looking at competitors names. For example, perhaps a competitor to Trader Joe's could call their company Guava Duff's. You can look beyond your competitors to other companies in related industries or areas.
- Get inspired by the names of other successful companies. You can always look at the names of other successful companies to get ideas for your own. Some of the most successful companies in the world have relatively straightforward, uncomplicated, and simple names. For example, here are some lists of successful companies where you might get inspired:
- Enlist a larger group to help you. Enlist the support of family, friends, colleagues and associates to help you brainstorm and ultimately select your name. Most entrepreneurs have a group of supportive friends and family who want to help them succeed. At a minimum, circulate your top 10-20 names to this group and get tally their votes. Even if you decide to override the will of the masses, you will get a good sense of which names resonate with people and which simply don't work.
- Make sure that the name is legally available in the state in which you will form the company. There are several ways to do this, but we do it for you for free as part of our company formation offerings. Obviously, you want to make sure that your name is available legally. Also remember that some states require that you add certain endings to the name of your company. Delaware requires that all companies seeking to incorporate as a Delaware C-Corporation with less than $10M in assets have an ending like "Inc.," "Incorporated," "Limited," "Ltd.," etc.