Brand Name Generator

What is a Brand?

A business brand automatically gives your business or practice of a unique personality. When used correctly, a brand allows you to reach out to people – people who can relate to your vision and who have a strong interest in your products.

The identity of your brand, or its image, can be conveyed in one of several forms, with the logo being the most important. For example, most people easily recognize the logos or brand images of multi-million- and billion-dollar companies, such as Amazon, McDonald’s, IBM, Apple, and Google.

This type of recognition will give your brand value a notable presence online and off-line. Therefore, the logo you select should represent your business in a way that is memorable and distinct. Combine this with your company’s slogan, and you can make quite an impression by the “impressions” you receive.

What is a Brand Value?

Before you create an image or business brand, you need to consider what it will mean for your business and to your customers. This is an important consideration, as research shows that a whopping 80% of consumers forget branded content after only three days.

That fact, alone, can give you pause for thought. If you want your company to stick in people’s minds, you have to do more than share content about your services and products online. You need to make sure you have a brand that resonates as well.

Therefore, the value of your brand is related to brand awareness – something that can be challenging to gauge. That is when you have to take a litmus test. How is the media you are using communicating your company’s brand and its core values? Are you really getting the results you want?

Why is Branding Important?

If you don’t cement a positive image of your company into your customer’s mind, you cannot gain the respect and standing you need to stand out among the competition. Therefore, before you present that great product or service and make any customer promises, you need to identify your company’s brand. By taking this step, you can maintain a rapport with your employees as well as your customers.

Because your brand represents your company’s personality, you can create a brand image through various channels of communication. Branding permits you to share your products and services in a way that people remember. Without any type of branding in place, you cannot emphasize the one-of-a-kind qualities that make your business’s products or services stand out in the public eye.

Making an Impact – Why Core Values Matter

Have you defined your business’s core values – beliefs that can be shared with your audience? If not, you need to work on your brand’s value and make sure it can be remembered and defined. Your brand’s core values mean a great deal if you want to make an impact in your field.

Directing Your Company to Meet Its Basic Goals

So, what, specifically, are these values.? Core brand values represent the beliefs that define your company’s basic mission and goals. You use your brand’s overall value as a type of compass – one that will direct your business decisions and interactions with your employees and customers.

Dedicating Yourself to the Customers You Serve

Every business owner faces times when he or she must make a difficult decision. However, if your brand value and core beliefs are strong, you can overcome even the most challenging conundrum. The belief system behind your brand’s value will serve you well, as it will permit you to do what is right for your business and the people you want to serve.

Therefore, recognizing your brand value makes the decision-making process more streamlined, if not effortless. Your company’s brand value enables you to live with your business choices, as it gives you direction with respect to your vision and overall mission.

The core beliefs that make up your brand value also influence how consumers perceive your company. This is helpful, as most customers more easily relate to a brand whose core beliefs parallel with their own. Your brand’s value extends to employees as well. Shared core beliefs help give your brand a certain uniqueness – a one-of-a-kind personality that people remember well.

When you place an emphasis on your company’s core beliefs and its brand value, you can build a business that will make you proud. Focusing on your brand image permits you to stay true to yourself and therefore create an authentic brand identify.

The Advantages of Establishing a Core Belief System

The belief system you establish is not about the services and products your feature alone. No, this type of belief system goes much deeper. It’s important to remember this when you are establishing your brand and its value for you, your customers, and employees.

Having a Great Product Just Isn’t Enough

Just because you feature exemplary software products does not mean that you have established the value of your brand. That is not enough when you are branding your business. Or, perhaps your company features a premium IT solution in the B2B market.

Again, that does not matter. It still does not guarantee that people will pay to renew their subscription. If you want people to remember your brand and buy future products or services, you have to stand behind your brand’s value proposition.

Consider this fact – According to the book, “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market,” and its author Harvard professor, Gerald Zaltman, 95% of buying decisions are prompted by the unconscious. That fact is significant, as that is the place where a company’s core belief system is found.

Here is a good example of brand value – American Express, a company that practically drips in brand awareness, demonstrates its commitment to brand value by promising to “provide the world’s best customer service experience every day.”

Therefore, to deliver your company’s brand value, you must enforce it as well as the core values associated with it. These values should be shared in your business’ infrastructure, culture, and daily operations. If your mission is to deliver the best service, you need to make sure the people you hire are motivated and engaged, or that they feel an emotional connection with your company. If you don’t commit yourself to your vision or mission, how can you get your employees to do the same thing?

You can do this more easily if you encourage your workforce to suggest improvements in the way everyone works. That way, you can keep things simpler and take ownership of how customer issues are managed and resolved.

Enjoy a More Meaningful Connection

You need to establish a brand value, as it can assist you in your decisions as a manager and support your brand storytelling as well. This form of communication allows you to convey your company’s message and core values through visuals, including color motifs, fonts, and your logo. Use your brand by communicating its value through the tone and substance of your messages – expressions that permit you to connect more personally with your customers.

Again, you can have a great product or service that features outstanding amenities or benefits. However, you really cannot connect with your customers if you cannot convey to them what makes your company great.

Why You Need to Enforce Your Brand’s Purpose

By creating a brand value and a core belief system for your company, you can realize the following advantages:

• You can make business decisions that closely align with your company’s mission.
• You can easily increase engagement with customers and employees.
• You can create a brand that is memorable.
• You can connect more deeply with your audience.
• You can create a brand image that is authentic.
• You can develop a brand that stays consistent.
• You can inspire brand and customer loyalty.

How to Discover Your Brand’s Core Values

You will find that the core values you establish for your company are not something you invent. Instead, they already exist. You just need to know where to search. You can do so more easily by doing the following:

• Conduct a brainstorming session with your team. Ask the following – “What does this business stand for?” “How do we want to be valued?”
• Learn from negative experiences. “What was especially upsetting about a prior negative experience with another company?” “What can you do to ensure that your company does not make the same type of mistake?”
• Review what you are currently doing to support your customers. “Why are you engaged in certain activities?” “Are they really working?” “Can you make some improvements?” For example, are you sending products as soon as you receive orders? If so, you already know that timeliness is important to you. Maybe you only use certain ingredients in the foods you sell. If so, that is an indicator of how you want to do business.

Make Some Comparisons

To further explore your brand’s value, create a list of brands that inspire you and jot down the qualities that identify each brand. Note the consistent traits or themes that draw you to a particular brand and its product line. Use the resource to create your own brand value and to establish your company’s core beliefs.

When developing your brand image and value system, you need to incite action. Therefore, it is better to stick to action words or verbs rather than adjectives. Use words, such as “strive,” “respect,” or “understand” instead of “loyal,” “reliable,” or “affordable.”

While adjectives are good to use for describing products or characteristics, brand development requires a business to show its willingness to act or to do those things that will keep the customer coming back.

It is also important to create short and precise phrases when sharing your brand value. Doing so will help people remember your company. Your core values should be as unique as your brand image. Always be specific when you identify your purpose and how you want to be perceived.

How to Make Your Name Memorable

Once you have given your company a personality and created its brand value, you choose a brand name. When selecting a brand name, you need to ask what makes your brand image stand out, or what is the glue that makes it stick in people’s memories? The following tips will help you create the right name for your brand.

1. Choose a Name that is No More than Two Syllables

While a long-winded name that contains more than a couple syllables may capture a person’s attention, it will not stick in his or her memory. Review successful company names that are household words, names like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Starbucks. Better yet, keep the name under ten characters. Doing so will make the name easier to type, enunciate, and, most importantly, remember.

2. Make the Name Stand Out

When establishing a brand name, you don’t have to get too carried away with how you say and write it. If you just need to stick to the basics, with respect to spelling and pronunciation. That way, you will make the name easier to say and write, and more recognizable.

3. Create the Name from a Story

You can also make a brand name stick by creating a story. For example, you might create a logo and name that originates from a story about how the name came about. In this instance, the brand name, Zynga, is a good example of how a story can lead to a logo and a brand name. Zynga was named for the bulldog, “Zinga,” the pet of the company’s CEO. While that name is a bit difficult to spell, it still is memorable because of its story and origin.

4. Make the Name Instantly Recognizable

While you might think it is inventive to create a name that sounds witty and clever, such as giving a brand the name of some mythological god, most people will not relate. All you will leave them doing is scratching their head in confusion. Use a name that can be easily recognized – something that people can relate to in everyday life.

5. Get a Relatable and Memorable Logo

To make a name memorable, keeping it short and succinct is not enough. It has to have a memory-provoking feature. This often is supported by the name’s logo. For example, when you see the Apple logo, you associate it with the name Apple – a major multi-billion-dollar computer company. The Nike logo can also be associated with its name. All you have to do is see that all-familiar swoosh, and you know that the product is a Nike brand.

6. Choose a Descriptive Moniker

If you choose a descriptive name, Google can find it more easily. Therefore, it will help you in the search engine rankings if your name is descriptive.

7. Produce a Name that Gives People a Hint of What Your Business Does

You can also hint at what your brand represents. This way, people will instantly recognize the name for what your business features or sells. Two good examples of these kinds of names include Vitamin Water and Pizza Hut.

8. Make Sure the Name Has One Meaning

While your name may sound fine in your native tongue, it might take on a whole new meaning in another language. Therefore, perform a search for the name online to gain more insights on its possible usage.

9. Make the Name More Generic

Just because your company sells one product or service now does not mean it will not branch out in the future. For example, the company Boston Chicken changed its name to Boston Market when company officials decided that they wanted to sell more than chicken. Rebranding can cost money and time, so you do not want the name to be too restrictive.

10. Avoid Using Clichés

A lot of companies call themselves “Prestigious,” or “Top-rated.” That does not mean you need to follow suit. Clichés will not keep your name in the public’s mind.

11. Make Sure Your Brand Extends Globally – Not Just Locally

While you may have a community-based business, your brand still needs to be presented globally. To welcome people from various backgrounds the world over, use a language that everyone understands, stay culturally in tune with your audience, and respect the feedback you receive from the public. Make sure your brand can be understood by a diverse population.

12. Place Character over Consistency

Make sure your brand presents a strong message – one that reflects your mission and vision. While it is important to stay consistent, the character you convey is more important to your success as a company.

Mistakes to Avoid

A brand does not spring to life overnight. It takes some planning. That is why it is good to carefully think about your company’s image and brand name. Doing so will prevent you from cringing or going back to the drawing board. Below are some errors that you don’t want to make.

• Not Focusing on the Brand’s Value Proposition. Make sure you tell people what makes your brand special and unique, whether you do so on your website’s homepage, in your company’s mission statement, or via a tagline. If you don’t concentrate on your brand’s value proposition, you will increase your bounce rates instead.
• Ignoring the Branding Guidelines. If you don’t want people to remember you, ignore those all-important branding guidelines. Guidelines serve as an outline to show what your company represents, and why your brand makes you different. If you don’t follow the guidelines, people will forget you fast.
• Creating a Logo that People Find Confusing. When you invest in a logo for a brand, you are making an investment – one that can either end up being a waste of money or help you excel as a company. If the logo does not create the right impact, neither will your brand. Below are some mistakes to avoid when creating this brand symbol.
• Other Errors in Branding. Again, you don’t want to brand your business as trendy. Otherwise, your customers will eventually disappear. The idea is to support your brand mission and vision and create a brand that reflects these goals. Trends, like waves, come and go. Your brand should be meaningful and purposeful.

Logo Errors You Don't Want to Make

• Using the Wrong Font. Choosing the right font is imperative if you want to ensure you reach customers with your brand message. Avoid font choices, such as Papyrus or Comic Sans if you want to make a good impression. The font should convey a professional and streamlined look. Select a type that supports your company’s style, which can be easily distinguished and read. Good font choices include Times Roman, Calibri, and Arial lettering.
• Making the Symbol too Busy. If your logo displays conflicting visuals, it will confuse the viewer and undermine your brand’s image. You want to strive for simplicity, as doing so will add versatility and memorability. For example, a logo with a basic design can be reproduced in various sizes, depending on the medium, without losing any meaning or sense of style. A basic logo will also stick in a customer’s mind. It’s naturally easier to see and therefore simpler to comprehend.
• Making the Logo Image is Too Abstract. While you want to keep your logo simple, you don’t want it to be too basic. In other words, you don’t want to make the design too abstract. You will only leave the viewer wondering and not remembering what he saw. Make sure the design is basic, but in a way it does not lose its purpose.
• Copying the Competition. Don’t make your logo into a copycat design, or one that looks similar to a successful competitor. This is a major mistake, as it is both illegal and can hurt you professionally.
• Using a Raster Image instead of a Vector Graphic. Don’t use a raster graphic, as it is made from pixels. As a result, images made this way cannot be scaled to size. Therefore, your logo will look pixelated or blocky, especially if it is reproduced to a larger size. Logos should be designed so they can be scaled to various devices. A raster image will not permit you to do this. Instead, when you design a logo, it should be done with a vector graphics software – one that is comprised of mathematically concise points. This permits the design to remain consistent over several mediums and in various sizes.
• Making the Logo Too Trendy. Trends come and go. That is why the logo you create should be one that is timeless. However, don’t make the logo so timeless that it becomes a cliché. Instead, think about the message that you want to send to your customers. That will prevent you from making your logo too trendy or too old-fashioned.
• Using Colors that Clash. Another logo design error is using colors that clash. While people will remember the vibrant and clashing hues, they won’t remember much else. To begin the design, start with a neutral black and white look, then add a spark of color later when you know what message you want to send.
• Not Matching Your Logo with the Brand Image. You want to make sure the logo matches with the intent or purpose your company wants to convey. For example, a logo design for a food business would not work out well for a boutique. Keep your brand value in mind, the image you want to portray, and how you want your business to be perceived.

What Makes a Great Business Name?

When deciding on a brand image, it helps to have a business name that captures people’s notice – something that can be integrated into the mainstream and be remembered. The following information elaborates on naming your business to reflect your brand.

• Stick to Your Branding Strategy. To begin with, you need to build your name off your brand strategy and value proposition. Without these two elements, you basically do not have any building blocks to use to construct the name. For instance, if your business is a high-tech company, a professional sounding name may sound too stodgy and old – not exactly the progressive image you want to impart. If you own a professional practice, you may find a witty name unsuitable for your business, as it takes away from any seriousness. When you formulate a brand strategy, you can clearly choose a name that works or a name that more closely aligns with your business interests or practice.
• Make the Name Distinct. If you want to stand out in your field, your business name should be distinct. While it may seem like all the good names have already been grabbed up, you can still think up a name that will make your business stand out. Make the name unique in its product category, and your company will be remembered.
• Make an Emotional Connection. A good brand name evokes a positive feeling – one that helps you connect with your customers. In other words, a good name resonates, whether you are trying to convey luxury, high-tech features, or functionality. Metaphors are often used in names to obtain the right emotional response. For example, the name Safari taps into the adventurous side of life, whether it means driving through an African savannah or surfing on the web.

How to Choose a Great Name for Your Blog?

Besides choosing a great business name, it also helps to name your blog, so it draws interest to your brand. When you create a blog name, you don’t want to make a hasty decision. You need to consider how changing the name may impact traffic. Therefore, it is better to be safe than sorry. By choosing the right name now, you can prevent future traffic losses and can shed more light on your brand.

That means you need to be completely sure that the name works. Changing the name later will require that you change your domain name too. This type of alteration, as mentioned, can increase your risk of an organic loss of traffic. It also means a loss of social media followers. If you already have 1,000 likes on Facebook, you really don’t want to change your blog’s name and begin, again, from scratch.

The following tips will give you the inspiration needed to come up with the blog name that works.

• Choose a Catchy and Easy-to-Remember Name. The blog name you choose should be catchy and simple to spell and remember. Again, you want the name to stick in the public’s mind. However, you don’t want to make the name too narrow either. For example, if you want to write about traveling in Europe, don’t include “Europe” in the name. Make the name more generic. That way, if you want, you can write about other places too.
• Don’t Add Special Characters or Numbers. Avoid using hyphens, as they are old-school as well as special characters, which are hard to include in a blog’s domain name. If a number is included in your brand name, that is okay. Otherwise, you should forfeit the numbers as well.
• Make the Name Easy to Pronounce. The blog name you choose should be short and catchy – easy to pronounce. Make sure it matches the vision you have for your blog. Great blog names include TechCrunch, Gizmodo, and Mashable.

How to Name a Product?

Along with your brand, you need to know the best strategies for naming your product. The steps below can also be used for naming the brand.

• Create a Name that Describes the Purpose of the Product. The name Microsoft gave to its search engine, “Internet Explorer,” is an ideal example of a descriptive name. People use the product to explore or look online. You really cannot get any more descriptive than that.
• Give a Twist to the Wording. When you name a product, you might also make the wording suggestive. For example, whenever you think of Ford’s Expedition, you envision a car that is made for adventure travel.
• Include a Suffix or Prefix. Turn a common word into a name for your product by adding a suffix or prefix. One example of this technique is the names Apple gives its iPhone, iPod, and iPad products.
• Turn the Name into a Compound Word. You can also make common words into compound words. Two examples include TurboTax and Photoshop.
• Make Up a Name. Another way to make your product name unique is to simply make up a new word. Just make sure it is easy to say or to remember. Great examples include Fritos, Gatorade, and Doritos.
• Modify the Spelling. You can always name your product, using a common word but giving it a new (albeit incorrect) spelling. Examples of this type of approach include products with names, such as Kix, Trix, or Fantastik.
• Edit and Fuse the Words. You can also edit a word and fuse it with another word to name your product. A good example is the product Pictionary – a fusing of the words, “picture” and “dictionary.”
• Use an Action Word. Consumers also react to product names that denote action. Some examples include the iPod Shuffle or Bounce dryer sheets.

Conclusion

Branding takes a lot of time to think if you want to do it right. However, don’t let that intimidate you. You can easily proceed with the activity if you create a mission statement and core values.

I hope this article helped you come up with the name that is both cool and easily remembered.

Now go up to our name generator, enter your cool name ideas or keywords, and the generator will do the rest of the work by suggesting available domain names that match your search criteria. Built-in whois script will uncover available domains, ideal for your business, blog or a product.