Choosing a name for your business? Here's how to do it right.

You have a great idea for a company. You have prepared your business plan. Now the hardest part. What do you call all this? There are several ways to do this. You can hire a naming agency or a branding expert. You can spend long brainstorming sessions alone or with your partners. Or you can hope for aha moment.

There is no one right way to create the perfect name for your business. Maybe some of the above will help you.

1. Make sure your company name is unique.

It makes no sense to get into the directories of company names in each country, it is enough to use the services of hosting providers and domain, where you can easily check the domain name for availability. If you are creating a business in the 21st century, you will probably need your website and subsequent advertising. And the name of the site (its domain name) may well be the same as the name of your business. You only need to enter your invented versions into the domain search and check their availability for purchase. Domain zones you can choose the most common: .com, .uk, .ru, .io, .pro, etc.

If you see that such a domain already exists, do not immediately discard it. By following the link, you can see if any company is located there or the domain is empty, then it can be purchased from persons who own it. To tell the truth, usually, some individual or legal entity buys various domains for their subsequent resale. And the price for which they are ready to give this name is often not quite adequate. Therefore, of course, it is better to look for a completely free domain that you can immediately purchase. On average, the cost of a domain name for 1 year is approximately 10 to 25 dollars.

2. Consider all the possible business name connotations.

The name for your brand does not have to contain a direct association with your business. There are many successful companies whose name has absolutely no references to what they are doing. Here it will already be a matter of chance, whether you manage to come up with a name that will also be free, which will be directly related to your field of activity.

First, try to decide on some letters. What letter would you like your company name to begin with? For example, Steve Jobs, when he thought about the name of his future company, Apple, started from the fact that thanks to the letter A, their future company would be at the very top of the directory of telephone numbers of US companies. You, of course, will have your motive for this or that beginning of the name.

If you are still not visited by ingenious names and there is not even the slightest hint of a future name sketch, you can use special services for this. Artificial intelligence is developing and there are more and more businesses where it can be applied. There are services in which you write words that are close in meaning to your business or just words that you like, set parameters, such as name length, consonance, complexity, etc. and artificial intelligence picks you up a lot of options from which you can choose which that's suitable.

3. Hire a professional to help you create a company name - or not.

One of the dangers of naming is that without a process — or a lightning flash of inspiration — you end up either thinking about outside help or deeply discouraged by the lack of options. Therefore, in extreme cases, you can turn to professionals.

When you outsource, you sometimes lose control over parts of your business. Transferring some autonomy to a name-creating agency can make you feel detached from your brand, history, and mission. On the other hand, experts exist for a reason, and many unforgettable brands were born in the brainstorming of agencies. Ask yourself: if I can’t come up with a name, can I outsource it? And how will you feel if you do not like any names that they will eventually offer?

In the end, it’s up to you to decide whether to seek outside help, or whether you have the skills and patience to find the perfect name on your own.

Prepared by: Alexander Boltrukevich alexbolt@tempting.pro