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.

Weston Gray

I started my creative journey with jewelry design in 2003, eventually evolving to include learning the art of metalsmithing just before my wife and I learned that she was carrying our first child. We knew we wanted unique and special names for our children and we were also leaning towards a biblical name, but not a traditional one. My wife came across a verse in the book of Genesis that speaks of a land close to the garden of eden and one of the things that was notable about the land was that onyx stone was found there, she thought onyx must be of some importance to get such an honorable mention. Read more>>

Sergejs Zelinskis

A friend of mine owned a yacht and one day he asked me to help posting an ad to start using it for half and full day private charters. This was nothing I knew about but since his English was very poor, I decided to post an ad. We got somewhat busy quick on weekends. Shortly after, I met an old friend of mine who recently bought a yacht and started chartering as well. I decided to build a simple website with these two boats and started looking for a cool domain. That was very challenging because every single common sense combination of boat and yacht rentals and Charters were already taken. Except one. Read More>>

Ayla Soma

My first daughter’s middle name is Rose. Bringing her into my world and wanting to preserve every special moment was my inspiration to switch over from primarily nature/travel photography to people photography. Many people assume Rose is my middle name – it’s not, but I like it more than my middle name, so I don’t mind! Read more>>

Sofi Melvin

I believe that much of wedding planning requires two main concepts: love and wisdom. The entire purpose of a wedding is to celebrate the love between two individuals, and that often gets lost in the details and overwhelm of the wedding planning process. My goal is to keep my couples’ love stories at the core of every planning decision we make together. Wisdom is not only knowledge and experience, but the thoughtful application of that knowledge. Wisdom is vital to planning and executing a well-organized, beautiful, fun, and personal wedding. Read more>>

Tiffany Erskine

The letters in TREE are my initials, Tiffany Rochelle Elliott Erskine. In a way this was me building my confidence and a sense of pride in every design/product I create. So, that my customers know that their design was custom created and made by me with love and passion. Read more>>

Tatiana Frost

My company name “Socorra Rose” was inspired my both of my late grandmothers which were huge influences in my life. My mothers mom” Socorra” which is my middle name moved here from Puerto Rico for a better life for her family. My father mother which was a lover of all things gardening and her favorite flower was “Rose” was a beautiful and giving person to anyone she met. I knew I wanted my name to honor my family and continue the legacy. Read more>>

MoNique Ivory

Well like so many others my husband and I spent a lot of time with our grandmothers. Him with his great grandmother, Miss Agnes and me with my grandmother Gladys B. We love to be in the kitchen with them to watch them do their magic.. We decided to change our name from Grace and Glory sweet treats and we wanted something that reminded us of them & the song Grandma’s Hands always seems to do that. We thought it might do the same for other people also, so that was the name Grandma’s Hands. Read more>>

Jay, Tuan, and Christian

The three of us met while serving together in the FBI so coming up with the name G-Man, aka Government Man seemed like the perfect fit for our bourbon. The name has historical context. On September 26, 1933, Bureau of Investigation agents and Tennessee police officers arrested gangster George “Machine Gun” Kelly. He was a wanted fugitive for good reason. Two months earlier Kelly had kidnapped oil magnate Charles Urschel and held him for $200,000 in ransom. Read more>>

Jamie Lemaire

When I was naming my business I wanted something catchy but also something that represented me. I’m a daydreamer, I am always daydreaming about things I want to accomplish, places I want to travel to, and things I want to create. I have been this way as long as I can remember. I figured that there had to be more people like me that catches themselves daydreaming all the time like I do. So, I named my business daydreamers by design and all my followers and customers are called daydreamers. Read more>>

Erica Harrison

My Business Name: Silverbridge & Co. I have been in business for over 10 years, an back in 2017 I rebranded my business with a new name and look. The reason for the rebrand came as two fold, first I relocated my market from Richmond, VA to Charlottesville, VA and Washington D.C. so a new look and name I felt was right for the change, but I also got married in May of 2017 and wanted my business to reflect me name change. Read more>>

Brianna Jackson

I actually love this story. Ase (pronounced ah-shay) is an affirmation word meaning “the power to make things happen and produce change” in the Yoruba tradition. According to the Yoruba thought, there is a recognition of the uniqueness and autonomy of the Ase (think “spirit”) within individuals is what best structures a society. I knew that anything I created or offered to clients would spark conversations, educate the masses, or provide confidence and resources to underserved entrepreneurs and organizations. Read more>>

Uyi Idahor Brianna Kennedy

The name Coco Drip represents the many different shades and hues of the Black community. We intentionally center BLACK people, specifically women, at all of their events. The Founders of The Coco Drip are BLACK. The events are hosted in predominantly BLACK cities. The Coco Drip partners with venue owners and other contractors who are BLACK. All of the featured business owners at the events are BLACK. When someone attends our events, they can find many shades of BLACKness dripping throughout the space. Read more>>

Jeremy Poley

In the veteran-owned business community, there are a few apparel companies that stand out. The most successful of these is Grunt Style. For the last couple years, after graduating college, I worked in the recreational cannabis community. During my time in that community I created the idea for Blunt Style LLC. Over the span of 18 months I mulled the idea of making a parody to provide an alternative to the other veteran apparel companies. I pitched the idea to coworkers and customers, especially veterans. Read more>>

Sneakz BTW.

By The Way Entertainment came along so randomly. When it was time for me to create this management company, I had to think of something creative and honestly nothing came. So I went with what our goals as a company would be and that’s to put people that needs to be highlighted, in the spot light. Have you ever been out & approached a group, you knew someone in that group but not the others yet your not introduced so you have that awkward “Hey I’m Tom by the way.” That’s Us. We remind you we’re here. Read more>>

Jennifer Luckett

January Moon was inspired after the birth of my son, Shepard. It is named after the month of birth. He was born in the middle of the night in January during one of the coldest nights of the year in 2014. The name also speaks to all the sleepless nights I remember that are filled with night feedings and exhausted effort of trying to get him back to sleep. In the midst of all the desperation, I also remember the peaceful moments of rocking Shep and looking out the window and reconnecting with the beauty of the moon. Read more>>

Tamra Lisier.

The name of the company was created because we wanted to pay homage to our DMV roots! The W in That SaWce represents Washington D.C. Being a DMV native all my life, I wanted to be able to take a little piece of home no matter where I am in the world. Mumbo sauce has been the staple condiment of the DMV area for years, and we wanted to create a product that puts our twist on the original. Read more>>

Violet Fernandez-Rojas

I came up with my business name Forever Shots Photography not overnight but definitely over time. My original name started out as “Violet’s Memories.” That was straight out of high school and I quickly did not like that. I wanted something that had a story about why I got into photography. Which was mainly because I had a hard time with “change.” Never accepted the fact that nothing stayed the same, I took it as a negative thing for so long. Read more>>

Dallas Shaw.

From a very young age, my parents and I would joke about me owning a food business. Most times it was a fictitious place called “Big D’s Burgers” since my name is Dallas and I really liked burgers. The dream of opening a restaurant stuck with me into college, with many of my business class projects centering around a restaurant theme, however, when it came to the end of my undergrad program, I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do. I decided to continue my education and spent the next 2 years completing my MBA while working in management at major retail company. Read more>>

Tina Adams

Unspoken Thoughts started because I wanted to gift my group of girlfriends’ a bracelet that had a motivational word on it. I asked all of them if they could tell themselves one positive word each day what would it be? Well everyone loved the the bracelets so much and soon others were asking if I could make them one. My thought process behind the bracelets were “Wearable Words of Affirmations Because We All Can Use little Reminder Sometimes”. The name Unspoken Thoughts was perfect because the bracelets are little reminders of the kind things we want to say to ourselves. Read more>>

Brian & Cassandra Oliver

When we were in conversations about the name of our company, we wanted to make it something personal to not only us, but our children. We wanted to leave our children a legacy so that they would be able to leverage what we built to secure their future desires. The letters in K.W.A. Group Branding are intentional and are reflective of our middle names. After a search in the market, we found that the combination of letters would be unique to us. Read more>>

Andrea Fabian

Let’s see… How I chose the name ‘Palms and Places Imagery.’ Let me tell you, a LOT of thought went into choosing the perfect name. -I didn’t want it to be JUST my name because I love working with others and strive to continue growing my team with amazing photographers like the ones I have now! -I didn’t want it to JUST talk about weddings, because, while my passion is being a part of the best day of your lives, I also live to see you through those small moments, the birthday, anniversaries, new puppy, new baby, all of it. I want to be in my clients lives for a VERY long time. Read more>>

Jelena Vucak Radicic.

I chose Raada in honor of my mother but added an extra ‘a’ so it would be pronounced correctly. My mom, Rada, was an incredible woman who always supported my dreams and I wanted to pay homage to her. Read more>>

Theresa Bills

It’s actually kind of interesting. When my son was younger he would say I love you mommy and I used to respond back by saying, “I love you more”. He loved to draw and one day he made me a drawing that said Love More! He was about 10 at the time and when I asked him what it was for he replied it’s for your business mommy. The drawing was beautiful to me, however, at the time I had no business I was a single mother working 2 jobs. I told him thank you and put my new art piece on the refrigerator. About 5 years later when I did decide to start my own business I already had a name and a logo drafted. Read more>>

Aliyah Marandiz

This is a fun story! When I was brainstorming the name of my company, I was inspired by the popular sunscreen brand “Supergoop!”. The founder, Amanda Baldwin, found its quirky name because she used to refer to her sunscreen samples as “goop” when creating her first formula. The sugaring paste that I was formulating also had a fun texture – so I called it “doh”, because it reminded me of Playdoh. Read more>>

Candace Holyfield

How I came up with the name “Diamond Peace” A diamond is a piece of coal that handled stress exceptionally well and turned into a beautiful diamond. Breast Cancer is attacking the beautiful diamonds all over the world. When a woman first finds out she has been diagnosed with breast cancer , she feels like that piece of coal she just wants to fall apart and give up in that initial moment, but she looks around and realizes that she cannot give up too many people are depending on her, Read more>>

Christie Hensler

Everyone I talk to and everywhere I go I see untapped potential. I see people not living up to their potential in their careers, relationships and health. They settle for status quo because they can’t seem to figure out what’s holding them back so they just keep going through the motions. I see businesses not reaching their potential and struggling. It’s my passion to help people see the untapped potential they have sitting and sometimes hiding inside of them. Once I get them to see what’s holding them back, then I give them the tools to go reach their potential. Read more>>

Maggie(ranmu) Xue

TEA IS FOR EVERYONE “Us Two” means the two of us. It’s about celebrating all sorts of relationships and connecting people together. We want to celebrate all the small moments in life that give us the greatest joy – a kiss, a smile, a laugh, or a burst of creativity – alone or in the company of those we love. We want to make tea culture more accessible to people in the U.S and to speak to them in a way that coffee connects people here: inclusive, welcoming and accessible. Read more>>

A’nire Glenn.

I always knew I was a creative person, and traveling showed me that I have the right to visit other places and engulf myself in the culture. I saw that we are all global citizens, and I wanted to be an authentic example. Hence, the name “Thee Global Creative” and intentional emphasis on THEE. I crafted the name “Thee Global Creative” after traveling in 2018 for spring break to Dubai and South Africa, then in 2019, to Cuba. Read more>>

Jennifer Biffert.

When stating our we wanted our business name to represent who we are. We are transplants to UT from Charlotte, NC – land of all things Southern, butter and biscuits, flowers favorite water source- humidity and southern charm. Our goal with our company was always to bring the charms we love from the South to the West. So when we thought of what would represent that felling to us – the honeysuckle flower was on the top of the list! Read more>>

Cassidy Spence

The name of my business is CassidyMade, but a little know fact was that it wasn’t always. The original name of my business was actually AutumnReverie which essentially means ‘daydreaming in Autumn’. I thought long and hard about the name but shortly into things I realized it caused a bit of confusion. Was Autumn my name? Was reverie supposed to be revere? And in that case, what did it mean? Read more>>

Anjelica Lusco

I came up with the name for my company after reflecting on what exactly it would take to achieve my goals. Being raised in a family of entrepreneurs I knew I would eventually come to creating mg own venture. In 2020 roughly two years after giving birth to my son I realized leaving a legacy in a creative way was my route. Leo’s Juice Co. was inspired by my now three soon to be four year old son Read more>>

Heather Holland

When I was naming my business, I had many thoughts about what I wanted, as well as what I didn’t want. My three main concerns were: avoiding cliche names for a hair salon, having something that could be cross-branded if I decided to reach beyond a hair only business, and something that was personal to me. As a Nashville transplant having grown up in Illinois, I wanted to have something that represented both parts of my life. Read more>>

Angela Rivera-Ritchie

Hi! I am Angela, photographer and owner of Photos by Mariposa. I have been doing photography for about 8 years now and have had my studio for about 3 years. Coming up with my company name was a challenge. I wanted it to be personal, express who I was, and the passion I have for it. In thinking of this, I looked to myself and the journey I had already been on in my life. Read more>>

Dierdre Barnes

The name of my company is F.L.Y. Girl Candles. Coming up with “THE” name of your company is important and I knew I wanted it to have meaning. During my time leading up to creating candles I was on a self love journey. I started to journal, make time for things I love and being intentional with my time. When I had created my candles the first thing I had to do was brainstorm. I can’t remember all the names that I came up with but I knew self love had to be in it. “F.L.Y.” stands for “First Love Yourself”. The “Girl”, I always say hey girl, what’s up girl. So that’s how F.L.Y. Girl Candles came to life. Read more>>

Kathryn Clevenger.

Schitt’s Creek. I already had a business and a name, Beauty By Kathryn Rose. Which was appropriate at the time but I was growing and out growing the name. I was on the hunt for something more. More space to spread my wings and truly offer the experiences to my clients that I knew I could if I had a little more room. We looked at building after building and settled on the one literally right next door to where I had been renting a room. Read more>>

Cayna Carnes

I am somewhat of an accidental small business owner, because I didn’t necessarily set out to do this. I had previously worked at an event floral boutique and a few friends later asked me to create floral designs for their weddings, so I used what skills I had learned to help with these initial events. However, when other vendors that I encountered would ask for my information, it got me thinking about starting my own company. Read more>>

Koriyan Beasley.

I created the name “The Kosmic Koach” as an extension of my social media identity, Kosmic Ko. My nickname is Ko/Koko and I’ve always been known to be different, otherworldly, and magical by those around me. I curated the name Kosmic to fit with the K of my name and after moving towards the coaching business focusing on spirituality, lifestyle, and metaphysics “The Kosmic Koach” came easy. Read more>>

George Sydnor

Crown 7 LLC. is seven men with creative ideas with no one thinking the same. Each man is a king in his own right and at any given time we all have the support of six other men. The look of our brand is Crown S7ven. Read more>>

Lora McDonald

MORE2 , “MORE-squared,” is an acronym that stands for Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, Inc. The organization is a faith based membership organization; we train and develop ordinary folks within our membership to tackle issues around racial justice and transform our community through public policy change. I’ve been the Executive Director for ten years and I have often asked where our name came from, specifically, Read more>>

Sara Sawyer

I started my business, Moon River Transactions, to give real estate agents the ability to leverage their time & energy away from the non-income-producing tasks of transaction management. I do this by utilizing efficient systems, excellent customer service & ever-growing knowledge from contract to close. I had been in Real Estate for several years and I wanted to take my skills for the paperwork and “Type-A” side of the business to a new level. Read more>>

Jessica Robey

I have always been surrounded by strong women who I thought of when thinking of a name for my candle business. My mother, always told me to speak into existence what I want/need. Her being a medium/ Reiki master she taught me about chakras, crystals, and herbs throughout my life. My Granny was who introduced me to candles. We would burn them mixing waxes to create our own. Both of them have been major impacts on wanting the best for myself and knowing that I am a product of strong, courageous, women. Read more>>

Kitura Smith

I love this question! Like any other company, you want a name that encompasses your product and that has a catchy name. I solicited ideas from family and friends and they provided some interesting names but those names were not “IT”! Soooo, I started thinking about things that I liked, movies with catchy titles and I thought, “Ah-ha….All About the Benjamins” and there birthed All About the Mini’s! Bite size flavor on the go. Read more>>