What’s in a brand name? Quite a lot actually. A brand’s name is its identity – which is why brands like Coca-Cola, Nike and Emirates resonate highly for awareness and are synonymous with high-quality goods and services.

Should all brand names have a meaning behind them and a clear brand connection or can they be a more random word or phrase, whose connection to the brand develops over time? If we’re going with the theory that marketing always starts with knowing your audience, then surely there’s some science behind choosing the right name.

Read on to discover how to come up with the right brand name and identity for your business using brand name generators – as well as your own intuition.

Brand yourself

One of the first steps for any business owner is to come up with a brand strategy. This begins with a brand vision, and also involves knowing your audience, and having a strong understanding of what your business wants to accomplish. This is the basis of what will develop your brand into a household name.

Here are a few considerations for creating a successful brand name:

• Target audience – What resonates with your audience? What tone are you trying to create? How does your name convey this?
• Competitors – What are their names? Are they long, short, snappy, funny or serious? Do you want to blend in, or stand out against them?
• Services – What do you offer? For instance, Toys R Us and General Motors explain their services in their name, while Kleenex does not.
• Simplicity – Is the name easy to remember? Is it something customers will be able to easily say and search? Think Amazon, Snapchat and Hilton for inspiration.
• Originality – Can you own the intellectual property? Are there any legal considerations to keep in mind?

It’s also valuable to think about sources of inspiration. For instance, Nike takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, while McDonalds’ name is taken from the names of its founders. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola was inspired by the coca plant and uses iteration to give the name a memorable spin.

Simply put, a good brand name should be memorable and should communicate your brand’s message and mission in some way. It should also be universal enough for your brand to be able to continue to develop in the future.

Business name generators

The other option of course, is to use a business name generator. Using a name generator is a scientific way to explore and develop business names and will provide you with many name options. It’s important to keep in mind that using a generator can potentially remove the human part of your brand.

To understand this better, let’s explore the pros and cons of using a business name generator.

Pros

• It’s all-too-easy to have a mind block when trying to come up with original business names. Using a brand generator can present some ideas you might not have considered yourself. Whether you choose to use these names or not, it can help get your creative juices flowing.
• If you’re looking for a host of options to choose from, this is a great way to create a menu to pick from.
• When you’re a start-up or small business, every penny counts. Therefore this is the smart choice for cost-conscious entrepreneurs – it’s much cheaper than using a marketing agency. In many cases, a business name generator is even free to use.
• If time is of the essence, then using a business name generator is one of the quickest ways to achieve the goal of naming your brand
• Ease of use: the good news is that anyone can use a name generator – it takes little technological know-how.

Cons:

• Using a brand name generator means losing that important human touch. Some suggestions that it will generate can be nonsensical or lacking intuition.
• It may be too simplistic, with very little basis to develop your business on. Also, for those looking to develop their brand story, this route may not provide a strong enough foundation.
• There are some creative limitations when using a name generator. In some cases, it may provide similar names for everyone, which means you may lack an original name.

Options of business name generators 

If you’re looking to use a business name generator, here are three of the most popular online resources. To put them to the test, we’ve used a hypothetical small business – a beauty company, using key terms; beauty, facial, women, eyelashes and wellbeing to compare results.

1. Business Name Generator

Website: businessnamegenerator.com
Cost: free

Quick and easy to use, Business Name Generator is a simple tool – possibly too simplistic. Entering the above terms into the generator, 39,995 business names emerged at the click of a button. Many of these results were random words put together – some suggestions made more sense than others. Suggestions include; Inspire Facial, Desire Women, Den Women and Lucky Beauty. On the surface, they all feel adequate and relevant to the beauty industry.

It also allows you the option to filter names by industry and results. For instance, you can opt for rhyming names or two-word names, as well as blog names or start-up business names.

The website also links to domain providers so that you can check the name’s availability online.

2. Namelix

Website: namelix.com
Cost: free

With an easy-to-use interface, Namelix invites you to add a few keywords, then offers short, medium or long names to choose from. It also offers a host of different name styles to select.

Using different filters, suggestions included modern choices like Facial.ly, to some that can get lost in translation like Closet Beauty, as well as nonsensical monikers such as icods. The results were very much a mixed bag.

To help bring suggestions to life, each name is presented visually as a logo. This, however, is all part of the bigger plan to get you to purchase branding from the site. The visual designs can also distract you from the name itself, which makes it better suited to those who are looking for a more holistic approach – perhaps small business owners who are looking for logos and names together.

3. Novanym

Website: novanym.com
Cost: free

With its professional looking interface, Novanym positions itself as a name generator with a difference. This is clear from the get-go, with the website asking for a bit more detail than its competitors.

It takes more of a strategic approach – asking you to input one keyword, selecting the business type, and the style of the name. Using this information, it conjures up a list of names, along with a logo to lure you in. These tended to be quite corporate, like Evetis and Vivatiq, as well as some obscure options like Jewellier and Elemensis, which are not exactly catchy or memorable. Under each name it clearly displays the price tag for buying the name with the logo.

Overall, Novanym is a helpful website for those looking to develop their brand assets. This platform is professionally-regarded and popular. Yet, like all the other name generating websites, it doesn’t drill into any detail or provide any premise for its logic. So, if a brand story is important to you, perhaps you should be looking elsewhere.

Conclusion: Making your decision

Laying the foundation for a new business is a challenging, yet important part of the process. Finding the right business name is essential for your business and brand, and it pays to invest time and thought into this early stage.

While name generators have a helpful role to play, they may not be for everyone. If your brand story matters, or you’re in a highly competitive market that requires you to stand out – it may be better to use your own ‘science’ and intuition. That being said, name generator websites are helpful ways to spark inspiration and ideas.

If you’re looking for a quick fix, or for logos to be brought to life, it’s certainly one of the more affordable approaches for consideration. Whatever you choose, be sure to test the brand name with your audience before taking it further.