When your future prospects and customers hear and see your name, how do you want them to feel? Do you want it to be something that makes them feel happy, hopefully, curious, or excited? Maybe you want them to feel nostalgic? There are no wrong answers here, but it’s important to get an idea of the feeling you want your name to evoke in potential customers. You can then use fun tools like the business name generator online to play around with different ideas.

54. Wyoming Secretary of State

For example, let’s say you are starting a home cleaning business. All the other businesses have names like “Maids by Melissa” or “The Cleaning Crew.” But then you decide to name your business “Sparkle & Shine.” While this may not be a bad name, it might be confusing for customers who are used to seeing it without descriptive words like “maids” and “cleaning.”

However, if you have a clever idea for a name and it does not fit your brand, all rules can go out the window if you have a marketing plan to make it work. Consider google and yahoo for example. They didn’t go with anything that fit what they are per see but they poured a lot into their marketing and made it work.

You’ve brainstormed a list of names and narrowed it down to a few favorites. Now what? Get feedback from others! If you have a budget for it, put together a focus group or two of your ideal customers and do some testing. If you have a small business and want to keep your start-up costs low, you can ask people you know. Ask friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers their opinion on which name is the best. People’s gut reactions can be telling. If someone doesn’t like a particular name, ask them why and take that into consideration.