How to Name Your Business
How to Name Your Business (Without Regretting It in Two Years)
Short answer: pick a naming route on purpose, then run every shortlisted name through four tests. Can people spell it after hearing it once? Is it legally and digitally free? Does it mean something odd in another language? Will it still fit in five years? The best names also do marketing work: they stand out in their category, they're easy to pass on by word of mouth, and they come with a story worth telling.
That's the whole method. The rest of this post is the detail, plus the one name we know better than any other.
Everyone had a name for this studio
When Julia started out, friends in marketing kept naming the studio for her. Bodacious. Juliversal Studios. Boda the Brand. All funny. None of them hers.
The real reason it's BodaWorks. is less funny. Boda is the surname of a father who left. Julia never changed it. Eventually she decided to make good use of it.
The "Works" part was a business decision. She never wanted "Studio" on the end. Studio boxes you into one craft, and BodaWorks. does a lot of things: strategy, identity, illustration, motion, campaigns. "Works" covers all of it. It also says something true about the person behind it: Julia likes getting things done.
That's one route. It's not the only one, and it might not be yours.
The six naming routes
Every name sits somewhere on a spectrum. At one end, names that are easy to understand. At the other, names that are easy to own. The clearer the name, the harder it is to own. Nobody gets both for free, so pick your trade-off on purpose.
1. Descriptive. Says exactly what you do. The Body Shop. Clear from day one. Hard to trademark, and it boxes you in the minute you sell something new.
2. Founder. Your name, your story. Ford, Dior, BodaWorks. Personal and impossible to copy. The catch: it's tied to you, which can make the business harder to sell or grow beyond you.
3. Mash-up. Two words, one new idea. Netflix, Pinterest. Ownable, still hints at meaning. Easy to make clunky, so say it out loud a hundred times before you commit.
4. Evocative. Borrows a feeling, not a fact. Patagonia, Amazon. Memorable with lots of room to grow. It needs a story and an identity behind it to land.
5. Invented. A word that didn't exist yet. Kodak, Häagen-Dazs. Yours outright and the easiest to protect. Also the most expensive to explain, because it means nothing until you make it mean something.
6. Initials. Letters standing in for a name. IBM, H&M. Short and works everywhere. Means nothing until you're huge. Most initial names started life as something longer (IBM was International Business Machines), and earned the shortcut later.
Most strong names live in the middle: founder, mash-up and evocative. That's the sweet spot, where a name hints at something without explaining everything.
The four tests
Got a shortlist? Good. Now try to break it.
1. Say it once. Say the name out loud to someone, one time. Can they spell it? If not, every referral, every podcast mention and every "oh you should talk to..." leaks a little.
2. Check it's free. Domain. Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. Companies House. The UKIPO trademark register. Boring. Non-negotiable. Do this before you fall in love, not after.
3. Translate it. Boda means wedding in Spanish. Lovely. In Hindi and Urdu it can mean timid, or old and broken. Less lovely. We kept it anyway, because a translation is only a dealbreaker if it lands in your market. Some names are not so lucky. Check the obvious languages for your market before you print anything.
4. Five years on. Will this name still fit when you've outgrown what you sell today? "Glasgow Cake Co." is lovely right up until you open in Edinburgh and start selling coffee.
The marketing side nobody mentions
A name isn't just a label. It's working on every sales call before you even say hello.
Stand out in your category. If every competitor is "Something Studio", be anything else. Different gets remembered.
Be findable. Google it. If a common word buries you on page five, it buries you everywhere.
Make word of mouth easy. Referrals happen out loud. A name that's easy to say is easy to pass on.
Pick your suffix on purpose. Studio, Agency, Co., Labs, Works. That last word quietly sets your scope, your size and your price.
Give it a story. "Why that name?" is a free opening line in every first meeting. Have a good answer.
Where naming fits in the bigger picture
Here's the part most naming guides skip: you can't name something you haven't defined.
At BodaWorks. we take every client through five stages: Bedrock, Blueprint, Build, Broadcast, Buttress. Naming questions come up in Bedrock, because that's where we work out purpose, audience, positioning and the words that belong to you. A name chosen before any of that is a guess. A name chosen after it is a decision.
That's also why a great name on its own won't carry you. It's the first thing your identity has to live up to. The colours, the type, the voice and the work all have to back it up.
One final thought
A name doesn't need to mean one thing. It needs to mean something to you, and it needs to be yours to keep.
Ours came from a man who left. Julia turned it into something she built. Yours can come from anywhere. Just choose it on purpose.
Before You Go
Should I use my own name for my business? It works if you are the business, or want to be known as the person behind it. It gets harder if you plan to sell up, step back, or build a team that's bigger than you. Decide which future you're naming for.
How long should a business name be? Short enough to say in one breath and spell after one hearing. Two syllables to two words is a comfortable range, but clarity beats character count.
Do I need a trademark before I launch? At minimum, search the UKIPO register and Companies House before you commit, so you're not building on a name someone else already owns. For anything beyond that, talk to an IP professional. We're designers, not lawyers.
What if I've already got a name I'm not sure about? Run it through the four tests above. If it passes, the problem is probably the identity around it, not the name. If it fails two or more, it's worth a proper conversation before you spend more building on top of it.
Keep Exploring
Explore our work at bodaworks.com.
Naming something new, or not sure the name you've got is pulling its weight? Let's Start a Conversation.