Naming Your Business After Yourself: Pros and Cons

Naming your business or website after your personal name is certainly something you want to spend some time thinking about.  There are several pros and cons, which I will spell out which can help you in making a decision for yourself. 

When deciding on a name for your business, you typically want to choose something that is relative to the product or service you provide.  This is for marketing purposes, so that there may be no mistake in what type of business you operate.

You can also point to countless businesses, however, that are named after the founders such as those below:  

Tommy Hilfiger – American clothing manufacturer

Jack Daniel’s – Whiskey

Ford after Henry Ford – American made cars

Trump towers, resorts, etc after Donald Trump – Real Estate

Most of us can all associate every single name brand above with what they stand for.  You can be sure though that in the start up phase for each of these companies it wasn’t so.  Anyone who names their business after themselves has to realize that at the beginning, it will not help bring customers through the door.  In fact, it could do quite the opposite, because people would have no interest in looking further into a business if they don’t immediately see how it can provide a solution to the problem they want solved.  

If you are going to name a business after yourself, you have to be confident that you will be able to inform your target market, exactly what it is your name represents.  This can often mean dedicating a large portion of money to your marketing department. 

You also want to make sure how closely you want to identify yourself with your company.  Is your company something you are sure you will still want to closely identify yourself with 5, 10, 20 years down the road? Women may have to think more carefully about naming a business after themselves more so than men, since a woman’s name typically changes after a marriage or divorce. 

What about when you want to sell your company?  How will your personal name affect this?  A company name should be one of the biggest assets as this is what creates good will.  A buyer may not want to change the company name if customers already know and trust the current name.  But what if the person you sell to drives the company into bankruptcy?  You certainly don’t want your name associated with something negative such as this.  Just something to think about.

Some of the pro’s of naming a business after yourself and why I named this website after myself is, it certainly helps build trust with customers and readers.  Nobody wants their good name tarnished and anyone who would place their name, by their work would certainly have my trust.  Naming this blog after myself helps me to work harder, post frequently and to do research to find information that is helpful to others.  I realize that by having my name as the domain name won’t help me at first, but I’m trusting that the content in the blog is so good that readers will want to share with their friends.  The same goes with other businesses that are named after the founder.

You also may name your business after yourself if you are trying to grow your personal brand.  In the future, people will associate your successful business with you, which may create many opportunities for you.  Other companies and people will want to partner with you because your name will be associated with something positive… Something they want their company to be associated with.

So regardless of what name you choose for your business, there are some general guidelines you want to be aware of. 

1) You never, ever want to limit yourself for potential growth into new industries in the future. 

2) Don’t pick a trendy word or phrase that will soon be outdated.  Might be cool to name your business this now, but may change in the future.

3) Also make sure your potential business name isn’t already taken or will even resemble a well known brand.  You can do a search online for a name you are considering.

These are some tips to consider when naming a business after yourself.  Any comments of course are always welcome.