Your Business Name: Descriptive or Unique?

By Susan Ward

Over at the Small Business Marketing Guide, Anita Campbell tackles the question of whether it's better to choose a business name that's descriptive or to make up some unique name that's never existed before.


The advantages of a descriptive business name have always seemed obvious to me. If you read How to Create a Winning Business Name you'll see that that's the kind of business name I'm writing about.


I take to heart Anita's point about the naming process for small businesses and corporations being different - after all, they have different needs and different available resources. The big thing for small businesses is to have a business name that helps people find and remember your business. So for small businesses, I will continue to recommend descriptive names. As Anita says:

"I like descriptive business names because they do not require as much work to convey what the business does. That is especially useful for small local businesses without much of an advertising budget, where the name on a sign or on a vehicle or in the yellow pages may be the only sort of advertising you can afford" (Choosing a Brand Name: Descriptive or Unique Coined Word?, Small Business Trends).

Howver, that doesn't mean that I believe that if you're a small business, you should never use a unique business name. Unique-coined names certainly can set your brand apart, be easier to trademark, and give you a lot more leeway in terms of adding different products and/or services to your business.


You'll definitely want to read through Anita's list of the advantages and disadvantages of Descriptive vs. Unique Names before you decide.


More on Choosing a Business Name

• The Six Essential Elements of a Business Name
• Do I Have to Register My Business Name?