When I launched my own vinyl store Soul Quest one of the biggest challenges that I had was to think of a cool name. Despite how much work it takes to get a business off the ground, it was the name that took me the longest time to figure out. A name should be punchy, memorable and if possible it should tell a story and create a certain feeling. Soul Quest is everything that I was looking for and in that name we have been able to really create a brand behind it. There are many common mistakes that people make when creating a name, and these are the ones you should avoid.
No Portmanteau
There seems to have been a real trend in recent years of people looking to create a name which utilizes what is called a portmanteau. This is when you take two names and you use half of one and another half of another. These may have been cool back in 2012 but there is just too many of them on the market these days, and they have lost their cool.
Choose On Your Own
If you ask people to help you to decide which name you are going to use, the best thing to do is take their suggestions and then decide on your own. Deciding as a group can easily result in everyone trying to please the rest, giving you something of a vanilla name. To save the arguments and the hassle, make sure that this choice is your own.
Keeping it Simple
Some people try so hard to think outside the box when they often come up with names which are just plain confusing. In doing this you are only going to end up giving customers difficulty in remembering the name, or worse still you may put them off before they have even walked through the doors.
Cliche Claims
Another trap that many fall into is coming up with cliche names that give an indication of their power or strength. Names like Apex or Winner, is making things a little too easy and they can end up giving you names which don’t really tell the whole story. You can display strength without cliches off course, think of something like Iron Cliff, a solid and powerful name which doesn’t sound like it was created after a 5 minute meeting.
Doing Things Prince Style
Prince was a big fan of writing words like two as ‘2’ and you as ‘U’ but in the world of business this is a trend which has long gone and you should avoid it at all costs. You should also avoid the temptation to change letters such as changing a Q for a K in your brand name. This doesn’t do anything for the business and given that it has been done so many times, the consumers are not going to be impressed by your linguistic abilities.
