In this age of ubiquitous information noise, breaking through with your services or products on the Internet is becoming a challenge. One way to make it easier for potential customers to reach you is to come up with a good company name. If a user is to remember something, it will usually be the name or logo of the company. That’s why it’s worth taking care of catchy slogans that define our brand. Where to start creating a company name, what to avoid, and what are the creative methods that will make the whole process easier – we answer all these questions in the following post.
Ways to come up with a company name
Coming up with a good, timeless name is quite a challenge, and can cause the budding entrepreneur quite a bit of trouble. Of course, if we don’t have an idea or enough creativity, we can always ask for help from an agency that deals with professional naming. It all depends on our financial outlay and needs. However, if we decide to create a name on our own, the techniques listed below may prove useful.
Brainstorming
This is a method we have known since our school days, used especially when working in groups. In brainstorming, it is quantity, not quality, that is, when performing it, we want to get as many ideas as possible, even if they are potentially not very good or fit for the task. We meticulously write down each suggestion, and after a certain amount of time, we proceed to verify the written content. The advantage of this technique is that seemingly these «inferior» ideas often contain a completely unconventional view of the brand or industry, which can result in an interesting and innovative name.
Map of thoughts and associations
This is also a method borrowed from the school bench, which proves to be very effective in creating names. With a mind map, we can generate a network of words that are related to our product or business. Most often, we start the map with a fairly general word, then successively add associations to it, and then associations from associations. Nothing prevents us from dividing the scheme thematically, which can be useful for large companies dealing with multiple services. The resulting map words help you find the golden mean between a large number of potential associations and the specific information you want to convey with the invented name.
Dictionaries
Dictionaries and lexicons of various kinds can also be useful tools. They are sources of verbal inspiration, as they contain many variations of a word or related phrases that may prove useful in your work. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a dictionary of synonyms on hand.
Alterations and wordiness
This is one of the creative ways to make a name involving playing with words or phrases. This method involves adding prefixes or suffixes, combining words associated with a product or service, as well as coming up with new ones that are a hybrid of needed features. When creating them, one usually uses the schemes mentioned earlier, which, when combined with, for example, a mind map, can produce impressive results. Of course, you can be tempted to create a name that breaks all the schemes, but its creation is a demanding task, the effect of which may be too avant-garde.
Turbologo name generator
This is the last of the recommended methods, in which we use the online name generator Turbologo. This service, after entering the words of interest, creates a name, usually based on the following points:
- suffixes;
- prefixes;
- combinations.
Don’t expect the program to generate the perfect, original name for your company after typing in the associations. However, the tool may prove useful in the creative process.
Conclusion
A well-chosen company name is one of the many elements that make up the success and reputation of a company. Creating a name that will meet all the requirements listed is not an easy task, but it is not impossible. It is worth mentioning that the time spent on coming up with a suitable name is time well invested, which will translate into brand recognition among customers.