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.

Lisa Nolan

When I started my business, it started off as a blog. I wanted to share the aspects of a social worker who is healing and working on their place in life. My social work career has been pretty different from my peers because I decided to go the community route and not clinical. Read more>>

Christina VanDam

Name anything is hard… but when it comes to a business, you have to think of so many different things! When I first had the idea to open an aerial fitness studio, I tried coming up with a list of words for flying or flight. I came upon the word passion. After some discussion with various people, I decided that passion is the word to go with, however, just calling a business “Passion” wouldn’t work for us. So, I looked up synonyms for passion and found the word Zeal. Read more>>

Kelly Borders

I named my business after my daughter, Grace. And I wanted something strong to go alongside it and Honor kept popping up. The definition of Honor is to have high respect; great esteem. I wanted to Honor my clients by treating them with high respect while showing them Grace with whatever their issues were. Because we all need that some times and I wanted my business to reflect that. So, Honor and Grace! Read more>>

Akos Gabossy

I normally spend weeks on finding the best names for my companies. With PANIQ ROOM, it was a little different, since a small company in Hungary was using this name already. I immediately knew that was the name and a key to our success, so we purchased it from them. It had the potential to become a well-known brand name that is easy to memorize and describes what we do. Read more>>

Reggie Kelly

KYVAN Foods is a combination of my two kids names, KYla and kaVAN. Just like any great parent my desire is to leave a great legacy behind to my kids. Read more>>

Lisa Driver

“Cana” of Galilee was the scene of Christ’s first miracle at a marriage feast, better known as our modern day wedding…. He turned water into wine. Wine was an essential staple of that ancient agricultural society, and in this particular case, the hosts of the marriage feast had run out of wine. Read more>>

Coco Cabrel

As part of my rebranding process, I talked a lot with clients and colleagues. My first one-on-one client happened to send me a surprise thank-you gift of a jean jacket with sequined angel wings on the back. Read more>>

Ken’Ja Pharr

I came up with the. name of my company by wanting to incorporating my mom who I lost to breast cancer. Her name is Candy so I wanted to include that somewhere within my business I also wanted to involve myself so I dropped to C and added a K to represent self. My mom loved sweets and so do I so I wanted it to give sweetness so that is where kandikoatedminks came about. Read more>>

 Sheena Willis

My Emma’s Line & Boutique is named after my daughter Emmaline. I started with children boutique items right after I had my daughter and wanted a store name that stood out. I knew I would have collections and lines as my business model, so using My Emma’s Line was a great play on my companies vision and her name! Read more>>

Shelita Grier

The name of my company is actually my middle name(Bernell) shortened to a nickname that was given to me by my older cousin. Also, I wanted to honor my mom whose nickname is B, and also my dear aunt, who we affectionately called “Auntie Nell”. Her middle name is Nell. Read more>>

Takeisha Tippins

That’s a great question, one that I receive often and I am always happy to answer it. The Name Cherie Coco was chosen because I wanted black women to know this company was founded by them and for them. Read more>>

Brittney Rodriguez

Like most, my entrepreneurial journey has been winding and fascinating vs filled with the youthful expectations of a linear and clear path ahead. My work began legislatively, then evolved into public information, and eventually morphed into a deep understanding that my contribution to the world is best relayed in my gift for storytelling and helping folks more easily communicate with one another. Read more>>

Melissa Aguirre

When i first started my career as a videographer/photographer, i felt pressured to stick to a “niche”. I’d constantly say “nvm, im going to do this. nvm im going to do that…”. After a couple of years, i embraced what i was saying and said to myself “nvm, im gonna do whatever tf i want”. But, not just in video/photo. I want NVM to be known as a multimedia company, artist spotlights, merch, art pieces and all kinds of creative stuff. Read more>>

Ataul Bhuiyan

Back when I when I was a 13 years old starting to learn how to make beats, they were all over the place. Because I was still in the learning phase my beats would annoy my parents and my parents would say in bangla ” He’s always just making a bunch of noise”. In bangla AVAZ means noise. Read more>>

Victoria | Adrian Santana | Gutierrez

Great Question! Every portion of our company name is specific to our values and where we come from. “American Vintage Society,” the American part is derived from a couple of things. We are an American owned and made company, not to mention proud Texans. Adrian is also a Veteran with 10yrs of service in the United States Air Force. Read more>>

Aleah Moore

Motivated to name my organization after my own life events. At the age of 19 I took on my first career job in corporate finance and that was the beginning of my toxic workplace stories with male counterparts. I was met with so much resistance for being a capable and confident Woman. Read more>>

Lashanta & Lateasha Witherspoon

The name of our company which is LLG Transportation Consultants is a representation of our personal names Lashanta, Lateasha and Gregory. Gregory represents our deceased brother who passed away in 2004 from cancer. Read more>>

Carla Alvarado

When I was a kid, my family used to have a farm called Urbana. Even though my family does not own the farm anymore, that place is still very special and important for me because was in that farm that I learned how to love and respect animals and their environment. Read more>>

Khambria & Deidre McMillan

Coming up with a name for the boutique was quite challenging. We had literally NO clue what to name it. It took 3 days to finally settle on a name. All we knew is that we wanted to have a women’s boutique and sell chic clothing that would bring women around the world to feel like the confident, stylish queens they are! Hence the name, Boutique Sales Chic! Read more>>

Shametria Banks

When I was developing the plans for my business, I knew I wanted to include part of my name in the title so it would always be tied to me. My maiden name is Routt, which is a bit obscure and does flow nicely with many educational phrases; however, when I thought about my experiences as a teacher and what I thought good math teaching looked like and sounded like, the name “rowdy” kept coming up. Read more>>

GAIL ALEXANDER

During a family gathering l mention to my Family that l needed to come up with a name for my business. We had a discussion and it was mentioned that every cup of coffee mixed was blended perfectly. That’s when “Gail’s Perfect Cup” became the name of my small home-based business. Read more>>

LeAnn Parker

I named my business ‘Silvertooth Home’ after the neighborhood that I live in south Kansas City along with my husband and three children. I found it fitting to name the creative work that I do after the home that we live as it is the place where I am inspired and daily practice. Read more>>

Christy Louis

Anybody who knows me well, will tell you that I absolutely love roses. The reason why I love them is a bit of a story. The reason why I love this particular flower is related to their universal symbolism. Throughout the world, roses are a symbol of love, courage, and beauty. Read more>>

Madison Newman

I started my business as Madison Newman Design but recently rebranded to Found & Forged Design Co. This rebrand means so much more to me than just changing my name; it really feels like stepping away from freelancing and stepping into being an owner and creative director of my company. Read more>>

Amy Grant

Art in Bloom Gallery is based upon the Bloom Family name from our maternal grandmother’s side of the family. Despite difficult times in immigrating to the US from Lithuania in the 1890’s, the Bloom family always championed art and created art even when our great-grandparents owned a dairy farm in Wilmington, NC, 1907-1910. Read more>>

Jordan Pullen

Growing up my uncle shared his passion of classic rock with me. We spent a lot of time flipping through his countless collection of vinyls he had collected over the years. Like him, I became a huge fan of Fleetwood Mac. One of his favorite Stevie Nicks albums is Bella Donna. Read more>>

Christopher King

I wanted to have a company name that was easy to remember and catchy. I also thought about how woodworking has been in my family for generations. It was taught to me by my Dad first. Then of course I took shop classes at school. I took wood shop, metal shop and small engine shop. Read more>>

Toccara Nicole

I love sharing this story. Back in 2014, on my way home, I had a chat with God. I told Him that I wanted to make sure that the name of my business represented the legacy within my family. My last name is Steele and I am the last woman who holds this name. I wanted to make sure that I honored my husband so I promised myself that I would not hyphenate my name. Read more>>

Duke Armstrong

Propello Life came to us over a long process of brainstorming on a whiteboard in our basement. We knew what we stood for, we knew our values, morals, and mission, but finding a name that is memorable, simple, and has an available website domain address is much harder than you would first think! Propello Life stands for “motivated life.” Read more>>