Picture this: It’s the year 2050. You named your company in 2024, you got big selling online what-ever-it-was and 25 years later you’re still stuck with the name: Grshpr.

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If you didn’t get it right away, your company name was Grasshopper.

Yeah. Bad decision.

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We get it, trends are fun. It’s extremely tempting to do what everyone else is doing; especially when it seems like it’s working or you think you can’t grab the URL because what you wanted was already taken.

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But the thing with trends is they pass, they flop, they become dated–or, even worse, they were just plain boring or lazy to begin with.

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We’ve collected the 9 worst naming trends out there so you can avoid them at all costs.

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Let’s get into it:

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This & That

Examples: Cobble & Crow, Heart & Soul, Scissor & Snip

This might seem cute, but really what are we saying here? That you can put two seemingly associated but nearly obscure words together? It's not cute, it's annoying.

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What You Do

Examples: Chinese Restaurant, Tires and More

These are forgettable and give no indication of personality or why someone wants to choose you over another business in the same industry. Like, how do I know which China Nail is which?

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Your Address

Examples: Off Broadway, Arizona Tile, 1492

Originality at its finest. Your identity hinging on your geographical location, cool. You already have an address and it's boring.

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Remove the Vowels

Examples: Pixl, Timr, Brnd

You couldn't trademark a name that 20 others already have, so you were really original and removed a letter or two. We can see what you're doing.

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The + Adjective + Noun

Examples: The Felted Tangerine, The Purple Frog, The Tiny Tassel

These absolutely scream: I only sell things at farmers markets and I sunk my entire life savings into making decorative bar soaps.

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Words Ending in -ify, -ly, -ology

Examples: Coinify, BucketListly, Brandology

It's like an entire generation of companies thought they were really friendly scientists. It's not cute and it doesn't make you an expert.

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Creative Spellings

Examples: Shyft, Qreate, Mohawx,

We can see what you're doing. You wanted to be cool and you couldn't get the URL. It's not working.

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Initials

Examples: Pick some letters and shove them together

No one has any idea what they stand for and it's lazy. You're not IBM, and CVS actually stands for the most boring company name in history: Consumer Value Store.

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Idiotic Puns

Examples: Curl Up and Dye, Tequila Mockingbird, Spruce Springclean

The only place these are going to gain traction is in a town with a population of 1400 where people still wear shirts that say "I'm sorry I'm late, I didn't want to be here."

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Now that that’s out the way, here’s how to name your company so it reflects who you are and connects with your audience for years to come.

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5 Steps to Naming Your Brand

1. Stop assuming you know what is right for your brand. Just erase that from your mind. You might know your business, but your brand is different. 9 times out of 10, business owners have no idea what's right to attract their audience. Okay, moving on.
2. Stop worrying about your URL. It's 2024. No perfect URL is available anymore. If you're looking for that, you're wasting your time. And how many times are you directly inputting the url of a brand into the search bar? We all Google businesses first. Work on your SEO and calm down.
3. Know your target. If you don't know your audience, you don't have a brand. And it's not just about demographics – women, 25-40 with sciatica. You have to know them intimately. Get in their heads. Find out what they want, how they feel and how they communicate.
4. Deep dive into naming research. I'm talking about the meanings of words, characters, animals, colors, word associations, languages, mythology, places, emotions...open a thesaurus and make a word bank in a Google Doc.
5. Play. Feel it. Put words together. Mix and match. Say them out loud. How do they sound when they're said? How do they feel (we call this mouth-feel)? It's not just about the words, it's a combination of how letters sound and feel as they're said along with the deeper meaning and psychological association of a chosen name.

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Stuck on naming your forever brand? Shoot us an email. It’s kind of our thing.