The rules that separate memorable brands from forgettable ones.
Most founders spend less than a day on their business name. They brainstorm a few ideas, check if the .com is free, and go with whatever's left. Then they spend the next five years explaining the name to every person they meet. Here's how to do it better.
Your name will live in conversations. Someone will hear it on a podcast and try to Google it later. If there's any gap between how it sounds and how it's spelled, you're already losing customers. Say it out loud. Ask someone to write it down after hearing it once. If they hesitate, simplify.
One or two syllables is the sweet spot. Three is acceptable. Four or more and you're in trouble. Stripe, Slack, Notion, Figma — all short, all ownable. The name has to fit on a business card, in a URL, in a tweet, and in someone's memory. Short names do all of this better.
Descriptive names feel safe — "FastDocs", "QuickPay", "SmartHire" — but they're nearly impossible to trademark, usually already taken, and never become brands. Brands create their own meaning. Apple doesn't describe computers. Amazon doesn't describe retail. Your name should have space to grow into whatever you become.
Before you get attached, run the name through a quick availability check: .com domain, UK/US trademark, Companies House, Instagram and X. Do this early. The heartbreak of finding your favourite name is taken gets worse the longer you wait.
Imagine calling a company and giving your business name to the person on the other end. Could they find you? Could they spell it? Could they repeat it to a colleague? If the answer to any of these is uncertain, the name is making your life harder than it needs to be.
The best brand names do one of three things: they borrow meaning from somewhere else (Amazon — vast, powerful), they invent something completely new (Kodak, Xerox), or they take a familiar word and apply it somewhere unexpected (Apple for computers, Amazon for retail). Generic descriptions do none of these — they just describe, and descriptions don't stick.
The .com is nearly always taken for obvious words and combinations. This is why the best brand names are coined rather than descriptive — invented words tend to have clean domain availability. If you're set on a real word, consider whether a short prefix or suffix (use-, get-, my-) makes sense, or whether a different TLD works for your market. A UK business can do well on .co.uk. A tech startup might be fine on .io or .ai.
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