The 5 “big things” you need to “worry about” when it comes to your business name

You can always change your name. And, these are things you want to think about before you name or re-name your business, services, offerings or products.

1 — Be sure it’s not already claimed or in use

  • some names are taken and taken legally through trademarks and trade names and unavailable to use, no matter how much you want to.
  • not all names will be available on all platforms, all state/country regulatory boards, as a domain, etc.

2 — Your business name contains no illegal or derogatory words, phrases, or terms

You may think this is easy, but it’s a bit more nuanced than you’d think. When it comes to the legality of words in your name, you will have to check with your local government authority. This is especially critical for anything financial, legal, or medicinal in nature. (Example: you cannot use the word “apothecary” in New York unless you are a pharmacy licensed by the New York State Education Department)

Prohibited words or phrases, such as profanity or words or phrases that are generally considered a slur against an ethnic group, religion, gender, or heredity.

3 — Your name is the same everywhere you have it

When you have a name, the biggest thing you want to keep is consistency. You want to secure the same name, whenever possible, all across the board. This is crucial to maintaining a seamless experience for your clients down the road and builds trust with your audience now. This is also the hardest thing to achieve, no matter the brand or budget. **

We are The Fiery Well all across the internet, with no variation across all known platforms. If you find @thefierywell somewhere, it’s 99.9% likely it’s us.

You want to avoid variety in your name by avoiding specific characters in your name, specifically

  • Hyphens ( – )
  • Underscores ( _ )
  • Periods ( . )
  • Special Characters ( # $ % ! @ / and more)

You cannot have an underscore, special characters, or periods in your domain name.

Underscores are a sign of “this same name exists and wasn’t available” and often can’t be avoided on social media. The caveat there is that underscores are one of the first “varieties” scammers will use to replicate your account on social media; most notably Instagram.

One of the biggest tells of scammers is the introduction of extra characters, letters, numbers or symbols, to the username of the person they are trying to impersonate. Especially underscores. Having a consistent naming experience can help reduce the confusion around “the real” account.

4 — The name “works over radio” or during a podcast interview

When we say our name out loud, such as in a podcast interview or over the phone, and we want to be easily found through a search, on social media platform, or we want folks to be able to go to our website directly, we want to make sure we can convey our name clearly, succinctly, and without having to spell it out, letter by letter, whenever possible.

Depending on your language or culture, sometimes, this can’t be avoided. In English, however, there are a few key ways to attempt to avoid this:

  • Don’t use numbers in your name. This eliminates having to explain if you “use the number 8” or “8 spelled out, eight.”
  • Don’t use words that sound one way, and are written different ways. In English, for example, for, four, fore; eight, ate; they’re, their, there; read, red; read, reed. English is really difficult without surrounding context, even if you are a native speaker.
  • Don’t repeat letters. When it’s in your name this is really hard to overcome. But do you spell your name Michelle or Michele? Are you apart of the Adams family or Addams family? Chappel, Chappell, or Chapel? Glen or Glenn?
  • Avoid silent letters. Again, this comes down to language. If your audience is within your language, this is less of an issue. In English, again, without context is it reign, rein, or rain? Isle or aisle?

5 — Your business, or username, fits the character limits

If you want to secure your name as a Twitter/X username, it must be between four and fifteen characters. As of this writing, Twitter/X has the most strict of username restrictions on character length for the social media platforms.

This can make securing a username incredibly difficult, but if you can manage to fit your name within 15 characters, you have a very short, succinct name and this is a competitive advantage.

The shorter something is, in theory, the easier it is to remember. Think, again, of the brands and names of people and small business that you routinely engage with, recommend, and recall. Are they long names or short names?

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