How to name a business: a practical 7-step process

1. Write the brief before you write any names

Naming without a brief is why founders end up with 200 options and no decision. Before you generate anything, write four lines: what the business does, who it is for, what you want people to feel, and what you never want to sound like.

That last line does more work than the other three. 'Never sound like a cheap franchise' or 'never sound like a hospital' eliminates whole families of names in one stroke.

• Offer: the thing you sell, in one sentence a customer would recognise
• Audience: the specific person paying, not a demographic bracket
• Tone: three adjectives, and one anti-adjective
• Context: where the name will first be read — a sign, a domain, an app icon, a tender document

2. Generate widely, from more than one angle

Good shortlists come from mixing name types rather than grinding one. Work through descriptive names, evocative real words, founder or place names, invented compounds and metaphors. Even the categories you reject sharpen your taste.

Volume helps only up to a point. Thirty considered candidates across five families beats three hundred variations on one keyword.

3. Cut hard, and cut early

Delete anything that needs an explanation, anything you have to spell out on the phone, and anything that would look identical to a competitor's sign at 20 metres.

Then delete the AI tells: bolted-on -ify, -ly and -tra endings, dropped vowels, doubled consonants and invented Latin. They were novel a decade ago and now read as a template.

4. Run the say-it-out-loud test

Answer an imaginary phone call with each finalist: 'Good morning, [name], how can I help?' Names that are awkward to say are awkward to recommend, and word of mouth is the cheapest channel you will ever have.

Then type it. If you hesitate over the spelling, so will every customer who heard it from a friend.

5. Check availability properly

Availability is four separate checks, and skipping any one of them is how rebrands happen: your national companies register, a trademark search in the classes you trade in, domains, and social handles.

Search the name alongside your town or city too. Local duplication causes more real-world confusion than a distant company with the same word.

• Companies register in every country you will trade in
• Trademark database search, by class
• Domain: the exact match, plus obvious typos
• Social handles on the two platforms you will actually use

6. Pressure-test the top three

Put your finalists head to head on the criteria that matter — distinctiveness, memorability, pronounceability, room to grow and how it looks as a logo. Force a ranking; a tie means you have not tested hard enough.

Show them to five people in your target market, not five friends. Ask what they think the business does, not which name they like.

7. Commit, then stop looking

Every name looks strange for two weeks. Distinctive names look strangest of all, which is exactly why they work. Register everything the day you decide and start using it immediately — familiarity does the rest.

Questions

How long should naming take?

A focused afternoon for generation and shortlisting, then a few days of availability checks. Anything longer usually means the brief was never written.

Should the name describe what I do?

It helps early, when nobody knows you, but it caps you later. A partially descriptive name — one real word plus a category cue — is the usual compromise.

Does the .com matter?

Less than it did, but an exact-match domain still reduces friction. A clean alternative extension beats a misspelled .com every time.