What’s in a name? A lot apparently, as entrepreneurs, artists, and makers of all kinds spend enormous amounts of energy searching for the right name for their business, project, organization, or creation. Below, you’ll find the stories of how various successful brands, creators and entrepreneurs came up with their names.

Debra and Zach Christensen

When I (Zach) was in college, when I’d get a bit overwhelmed with school or with life, I would drive to a pretty location at sunrise or sunset and take it all in. Could be right off the road or a quick hike somewhere by myself and spend a good 30 minutes to breathe and ground myself. When we started dating, those little outings continued, and we would find ourselves in gorgeous locations and take selfies, haha feels like forever ago. We loved going to those “sights” (still do obviously ha). Read more>>

Libby Shelton

I struggled to balance my studies with my personal life and knew I wasn’t alone in this struggle. I wanted to create a social media platform to help students maximize their time and help me review past material. I debated between Study with Libby and Learn with Libby. So like the nerd I am, I looked up the definitions of the two words. Studying is to read, memorize, and complete other activities with the intention of learning. Read more>>

Holly Whitten

I went through a ton of names in my head before The Wax Lab was chosen. Naming a business feels a bit like naming a kid, right? It’s going to stick forever and it needs to be fitting and you really need to love it. My other half is a Chemist and he helped me with formulations for my products. One day, it just came to me that I should be called The Wax Lab! Everyone that I ran the name by, loved it and said it was perfect! Read more>>

Jeff Taylor

I started DJing when I was in high school. I didn’t think about making this a business until several years later. I was playing music for everybody. Doing church functions, retirement parties, weddings, birthday parties, etc. When I decided to make it a business I didn’t want to alienate my church family when I was doing secular music and I didn’t wanna shut out secular people don’t want them to know that I also play gospel music so I was trying to come up with a name that would have both. Read more>>

Gargi Duggal

I had a dream to start a media house from a very young age. Having a knack for creativity, 5 years back I decided to launch the media house that focuses on film making and digital entertainment content. The name of my company ‘Gargi Productions’ was born as I believed that eponymy creates a stronger association between the entrepreneur and their firm. It increases the benefit or risk to the founder’s reputation and so they are more driven. Read more>>

Nneoma Uzoezie

I selected Unaltered Skincare as the name of my brand because I wanted people to feel comfortable in their own skin. I did not want them to have to alter their skin just to feel beautiful. By maintaining a good and consistent game-changing skincare regimen, anyone can have beautiful skin. Read more>>

Vanessa Natteal

When I started Koala Escape Travel it was simply an homage to my mom. She always wanted me to be successful. I thought what better way to show how she had her hand in my decision making on a naming of my business. My mom was an avid fan of koala’s and I wanted something that would always remind me of why I am where I am and why I have the opportunity I have. Read more>>

Anye Smith

I am Anye’ Smith, Owner and operator of Veh’s Treats. I’m a visionary and highly adept Pastry Chef with an Associates degree of Applied Science in Le Cordon Bleu Pastisserie and Baking, that was obtained in Dec. 2016. Read more>>

Maria Gentile

I was so fortunate to grow up in a family who encouraged children to be hands-on in learning traditional methods of cooking and gardening brought from small Italian hometowns generations before. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandfather handing out warm, juicy peach slices from fruit picked in his back yard, and of testing our fate by sneaking a rustic “s” cookie or anise pizzelle from the precarious towers of cookies stacked in all of our houses during the holidays. Read more>>

Amal Iqbal

I have been freelancing and creating my own goods since 2016, and since then I have gone through a few name changes. I started under the name Studio FIG, with the FIG standing for fashion, interior, and graphic design. Then for a while I was Ohmeed, which is the masculine version of my name, Amal; both mean hope in Arabic. My work is an extension of who I am, its almost like sharing my soul, so in 2020 I renamed my business under my own name, Amal. Read more>>

Mike Fox

Early in my career, in addition to producing radio commercials for a group of stations in San Francisco, I moonlighted as a Producer of music. One thing that stood out to me while working with these artists was many of them would have these colorful stage names to go along with personas they would assume while recording or performing that existed outside of their daily lives. Alter egos if you will. I always admired that about them because that was something I longed for as well. Read more>>

Grace Simmons

My company is named Mabel Grace Crafts and although it’s a simple name there was a lot of thought behind it. My name is Grace and my dog’s name is Mabel, so this seems fairly straight forward. The words both have five letters which help make branding look balanced as well as the repeated long “A” sound for subtle cohesion. Read more>>

Jessica Ruvalcaba

As an influencer/content creator, I want my audience to feel like friends. This is why I am “LifewithJess”. I want to take my audience with me through my life. I have so much love for people, so I want lifeWithJess to feel comfortable and not like a script. This is why my feed is full of different things (fashion, travel, dogs, friends, lifestyle, college, favorite brands etc). Read more>>

Shelby Valentine

When I first started my business in 2020, I began as a fitness coach and my biz name was Shelby Sweats. That title and name fit for awhile, but as I began becoming more interested in spirituality, the brain, trauma, and business, it slowly began to not make sense anymore. Read more>>

Burchell McGhee

The naming of my brand came to me from comments from people in various parts of my life. I was the MC of a Run/Walk fundraiser. It was being livestreamed on Facebook showing the winners, but I was off-screen. Someone posted a question asking if it was me. Years later, I was at a panel discussion and a guest asked if I did the announcing for that same Run/Walk because she recognized my voice. Read more>>

Karen Larochelle

I wanted something to capture the beauty of nature and my biggest inspiration — my parents, who were entrepreneurs and always believed in me and my potential. One of my earliest and happiest memories with my dad was when he lifted me up to grab a fresh fig off of a fig tree. My mom was bold and beautiful and had gorgeous red hair. My business name, Fig & Fire, is a nod to them. Read more>>

Natalie Diaz

The name of my company originated in a non-traditional way in comparison to a majority of companies. In April of 2018, I lost my 1 year old daughter (Layla) triggering the beginning of my depression which ultimately led to failed suicide attempt on what would’ve been her 3rd birthday on January 31st of 2020. Read more>>

Skye Choyce

Perfect Choyce is such a special name. The idea for my business name started in my childhood days. I was running for ASB president and needed a slogan. My slogan was “Skye Choyce is the right choice.” As you can imagine, I still feel the same. So Skye Choyce went from the right choice to the Perfect Choyce! Read more>>

LaTrese Savior

Coming up with a name that I felt fit me and was unique and tailored to a brand I felt worth embodied me as a stylist along with my work ethic, was hard! I started out with a super generic brand/business name “Tresses by Trese,” but it never felt right. When the pandemic began, right before we all went into lockdown, I’d had a photo shoot planned already. Read more>>

Masha TITOVA

My family name is Titov, it’s a popular Russian surname. A fun fact about Russain surnames is that the women get an additional “a” at the end of the name. So my legal last name is Titova, while all the men in the family are Titov’s. I love the idea of having the male version be associated with a highly feminine product like lingerie, and the first three letters are “tit” which also felt very much like fate. Read more>>

Eve Wierzbicki

My business promotes everything in the dunes from businesses, to people, to the beaches and trails in the Indiana Dunes. I wanted a catchy name that people would remember. An easy name to find on social media and a name that would be fun for people to have on merch….a shirt, a car magnet, a sticker or hat. People love to show off that they “Dig the Dunes”. ! Read more>>

Peter Greco

I started my company out of covid so the customers I currently had were friends and class mates. I needed to think about those people and how they talked about myself and how my kombucha was connected to me. This ended up being the drive for the name. I made a list of names and sent them to all my friends and 90% of them came back with “Pete’s Kombucha” Read more>>

Adrian Middleton Sr

I’ve been asked a few times how did I come up with Predator Productionz. It’s quite simple actually…so first and foremost the Predator movie franchise is an all-time favorite of mine. I’m a huge fan, so much so that I have a tattoo on my arm of the predator unmasked. Secondly, Predator was a nickname of mine in school as early as elementary when I started playing football, do to my playstyle and build and long dreads. Read more>>

John Kerry

In 2011 I founded a Business Management company called Kerry Consulting Group and rebranded the company in 2022 with its new name Xstrataflo. Xstrataflo is very important to me as everything about the name represents what my company stands for and how we should operate. X stands for finding a client’s X Factor and identifying what makes a client and their business special. Read more>>

Rashad Harrell

Rock is the nickname my dad gave me growing up. My family has a heavy background in music. My older brother Mark started his rap career and I watched him grow but didn’t go as far as he wanted it to go. So I started rapping as well and dropped the k in my nickname. I called myself Rocboxster. Read more>>