Business Name Generator

How This Generator Works

Typical name generators generate random words and then call it a day. Our tool, however, lets you filter on three axes: industry, style, and name structure.

For each filter, you can select an industry. The word pool for each industry mirrors real naming conventions in that space. Then you can add a style to the mix, such as professional, bold, playful, or minimal. And finally, you can add a name-type to determine whether the output will be a single word or a two-word phrase, a fused compound, or even a blended portmanteau. You can mix and match the filters freely, and every click on Generate returns a new batch of 10 names.

How the industry filter shapes names

Our naming data within each filter is specific to a particular industry, and the word pools reflect this.

Tech

Tech names are often short, “modular” in construction, and made up of a lot of “infrastructure”-type language, like “nodes”, “stacks”, “layers”, and “signals”. Short compound words and Portmanteau names also work well in this area. Tech products are often systems made up of many parts, so names composed of many parts are perceived as very “technological”/relevant.

Retail

The retail names we studied are generally warmer than the tech names we’ve looked at. Two-word names with a place flavor in the first word do very well for pure online sellers. “Grove,” “Market,” “Harbor,” and “Loft” all suggest a physical location, even if the store is purely online.

Food & Drink

Food tends to score on warmth, craftsmanship, and reference to eating. A lot of very earthy words score here: ember, harvest, grain, hearth. Process words such as press, brew, mill, and roast can score highly here, as they serve as shortcuts for communicating artisan-produced food without having to say the words. Often single-word names score well in this category when the single word is highly evocative and conveys the total essence of the brand.

Service

The Service businesses in the pool are primarily focused on trust and clarity, so the results here skew accordingly. Note the presence of words such as “bridge”, “core”, “resolve”, “partner” and “steady” in many of these names. Such names rarely attempt to be clever, as the primary need of a client hiring a plumber or an accountant is for the service provider to show up and do the work as promised. Clear compound names generally outperform their more abstract counterparts in this category.

Creative

For creative services, unusual words and even one-word statements are often employed. The names of design studios like “Vessel” and “Motif,” for example, even signal the aesthetic orientation of a company by their name. Here, the name is even more important than in other categories because it is the first entry in a designer’s or a design agency’s portfolio.

Health

Health-oriented names have a clear direction towards positive, optimistic connotations, aiming to establish trust. Most improvement, balance, and nature-related words do well in this category. Spelling clarity is especially important in this category, as a single misread name could destroy the goodwill a brand has built and, in the worst case, hurt business, since people would hesitate to book an appointment.

Style filter: what each mode does

Professional

Professional names are simple and easy to read. These usually consist of one of two words. Provide name recall wherever your name shows up: social media, business cards, LinkedIn. Your potential customers will know you’re the real deal.

Bold

Bold names bring presence to the room. The pool of names consists of single words and compound words primarily made up of strong consonants. This is the type of setting you would look to launch a brand in a crowded, competitive market, where standing out and driving growth matters more than blending in with other large brands.

Playful

These names will spark curiosity. Most are two words or a portmanteau — two words blended into one. Think ‘Wordineer’ - Word + Engineer (sorry, I need to plug this), Pinterest - Pin + Interest, Instagram - Instant + Telegram, Netflix - Net + Flicks.

Minimal

“Minimal names” are confident enough to not say too much. A single word that is very precise and has a specific meaning, or a portmanteau of two words that are related to each other, are examples of minimal names. The rest of the brand (the visual identity, the positioning, and the tone of voice) has to fill in what the name doesn’t say. These names work best when the business already has a strong visual design and the name serves as the final confirmation of the brand’s name.

Name type: when to use each structure

Single word

Maximum brand clarity. When a single word is both memorable and available, this will often be the strongest structure available to you. Shorter is generally better, and 5-8 letters is the “sweet spot” for most businesses. Note, however, that short, memorable English words are already taken by someone. This highly visible structure is ideal for category-owning brands.

Two words

These names are descriptive and therefore searchable. They allow a little more information about a business than a single word and can be easier to find as available domain names than single words. Two-word names are suitable for local, independent shops and businesses in specific categories where the second word of the business name can convey some of the business’s meaning. However, if both words are very common, the name can quickly become generic.

Compound

Fused for distinctiveness. A compound word name is made by combining a prefix with a suffix to form a completely new word, such as Nexusflow or Apexcraft. Since such invented words are very easily trademarked and broadcast to all digital channels simultaneously, the only failure case is when the two halves of the name don’t have any meaningful relation to each other. Such a name would then be arbitrary rather than intentionally clever.

Portmanteau

Inventive and trademark-friendly. A portmanteau is a new word made by taking the front half of the first word and the back half of the second word. For example, “Pinterest,” “Groupon,” and “Netflix” are all portmanteaus. Portmanteaus are harder to come up with than compounds, because most of them sound pretty awful. But every now and then you come up with one that is just perfect – as distinctive as a name can be.

What to Do After You Find a Name You Like

Generate a shortlist. Due diligence can then confirm that the chosen name is the best one for your business.

Verify .com is available – Type the proposed company name into any domain registrar to see if a .com is available for the name. A clean .com is far easier to build a brand around than a name with alternative extensions (e.g. .co, .net) available. If the .com is taken, find out who currently holds the domain name and assess the risk. An established business operating in the same niche market is obviously something to note and best avoid. On the other hand, a parked domain or business operating in an entirely different market category (e.g., two categories away) is likely to present far less of a problem.

The Trademark Search: Use the USPTO TESS database (for the US) to search registered trademarks by name and by category within your specific goods and services class. Even if a matching trademark is registered in an entirely unrelated industry, it could pose problems for your business in the same category for which you are seeking to register the trademark. However, a registered trademark in the same category as the one you are seeking to register will likely be a serious roadblock to registration that you will want to discover early on.

Check social media. Look for your potential business name on different social media platforms to see if the names that are on your target list are taken. Ideally, if it’s unique enough, these handles will be available. You want something that’s consistent across different platforms like Instagram or Facebook, so it’s easier to find your business.

Say it out loud. Tell your friends and family. Ask them what they think about the planned business name. Is it easy to remember? Catchy? Is there any negative connotation? This will help you weed out the good ones from the bad. Build consensus; asking more people will help. They may have ideas to improve what you have.

For negative connotations. Do this only if you’re planning on operating in different countries. Some terms may sound taboo in other countries because of their culture and history. Certain words will have a different meaning in a country. Now is the best time to do your due diligence and research before finalizing your business name. For example, the Chevy Nova reads as “doesn’t go” in Spanish, and Honda originally called a car the Fitta before pulling it from Swedish markets. A five-minute check can save you years of cleanup.

Looking for more naming options? Check out the Other Generators hub for a range of generators for band names, character names, and much more.

What actually makes a business name work

A large and growing industry of naming consultants and frameworks evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a wide variety of names, trying to describe what makes a successful name and what does not.

Brevity. The human brain can only process so much information in real time. Therefore, short names (less than 3 syllables) are best because they are easier to process and remember faster. Short names are also much easier to turn into a corresponding logo or wordmark.

Distinctiveness: A name that is completely different from other names in use in your industry is worth more than a name that is appropriate for use in your industry. “Appropriate” names are easily forgotten. “Distinct” names are remembered a week or more later when trying to remember whom to call.

Spelling clarity. How hard is the name to spell when spoken aloud? While an intuitive creative spelling can generate a small amount of ‘friction’, an unconventional spelling that needs to be explained is rarely to earn back the ‘lost value’. The alternative names considered need to have their spelling clarified as part of the evaluation process.

Expandability. A name restricted to the current product, city, or category can quickly become a bottleneck as the business expands. The best business names are specific enough to mean something, but loose enough to work for three product pivots down the line.