Brand Names Dos and Don’ts

Branding

Mar 7

Have you ever thought about the name you’re using for your business? I’m sure you have. Naming can be such a tricky and nuanced part of the business building process. Your name is going to be something that sticks with you—hopefully—indefinitely moving forward. It is something that you’re going to build a legacy around. It is going to help define your business and it’s potential as you make your way through the world. It’s so important!

Now, with all that being said, I’m sure a lot of you realize that businesses change their names all the time. For one reason or another sometimes names don’t stick. That’s ok and we do see it happen, but it can be a huge blow to your reputation when you change your business name. It can negatively affect your brand for some time after the change takes place. It can limit the growth and potential of your business as you make the shift into a different business name.

For this reason I want to share the story of my business name shift and why with you today. Learn from my mistakes and don’t do what I did! This will save you so much heartache and business issues in the long run.

Let’s Start from the Beginning

I’ve actually changed my name twice in my business. This might be surprising to some of you, but maybe not if you’ve been following me for a long time. I’ll outline my name changes for you below:

Started my business as Alex Changes the World in January 2017.
Changed the name of my business to The Catalyst Studio in June 2019.
Changed my name again to The Arcoíris Design Co in August 2021.

When I started my business in 2017, it was a side hustle. It was just an idea in my head that I wasn’t sure if I could really execute. I was at the very beginning of my business journey. I was coming from a background in yoga teaching, where I had built up a name for myself in my local community.

Because of this small amount of notoriety that I had, I decided to start my business with a name near and dear to my heart: Alex Changes the World. It was my instagram handle at the time and felt like an appropriate name to use for my design business. In those beginning moments I envisioned myself as an influencer who happened to do design work on the side as well. Having a business name that reflected who I was as a person felt right at that time.

Eventually though, I realized that having the focus of my business name be on me and only me was not right.

My First Business Name Shift

I decided to shift my business name to The Catalyst Studio in 2019 after being let go from my first (and only) desk job. When the company I was working for at the time let me go, I was told it was not because I was a bad employee, it was simply because they were outsourcing my work to India.

The way my job ended was really important for me because it helped me see that regardless of my employment status, I was a valuable and skilled employee. It was with this mindset that I set the goal for myself to do my best to make freelancing work for me. I knew the opportunity had presented itself to me in this way for a reason. It was now or never. And if I failed at freelancing, or found out I didn’t like it, I told myself I could always find another full time job.

With this goal in mind, I set out to achieve my dreams. And in order to achieve my dreams, I needed to take myself more seriously. I decided to shift my business name from Alex Changes the World to The Catalyst Studio because it gave me more legitimacy. It felt more professional to say this new business name to potential clients and it gave me the confidence I needed to land more client work. It helped me take myself more seriously which I think ultimately helped me gain the traction I needed to fully lean into my business and make it succeed.

My Failures in Naming My Business

While I don’t regret my business naming journey in any way—it helped me get to where I’m at now and I am so grateful for that—I do think there are a few things I could have done better along the way. For example, taking my business seriously from the start and looking into the legal requirements for naming my business prior to investing so much time and energy building up a brand with a name that may not potentially work long term.

So what exactly do I mean by that last statement? Let’s break it down.

When I went from Alex Changes the World to The Catalyst Studio, I didn’t do any research about the name The Catalyst Studio before making that shift. I didn’t think to, nor did I want to. I thought that the personal meaning that I had attached to the name was more than enough reasoning to use it, and was convinced everything would be OK for me in regards to my business. Well, as you can probably guess already, that was a bad course of action.

Two years after I shifted into using The Catalyst Studio as a business name I decided I should pursue legal protections for my business and trademark my business name. And it was during this process in 2021 that I discovered that not only was my business name overly saturated in the market, it was un-trademarkable. This was a devastating blow for my ego and my business as a whole.

While consulting with a lawyer in my state (I’m from CA) about trademark law, I found out a few things about trademarking business names:

You cannot have the same business name as another business in your state.
You cannot have the same business name as another business in the same industry as you, regardless of location.

It only took a few google searches for me to find out that Catalyst was a very common word used in business names. Not only that, there were several major agencies across the US that used some derivative of Catalyst in their business names.

Upon this realization, I thought that I could potentially keep the word Catalyst in my business name if I used it in a different way than these competitors. Think The Catalyst Design Co as opposed to The Catalyst Studio. My lawyer informed me this was not possible because my business could be mistaken for the older, more established business. The names were too similar. She then informed me I needed to come up with a new name from scratch and rebrand my business.

The Rebranding Process

The criteria my lawyer gave me for coming up with a new business name were as follows: “Think of a completely new word for your business. Something like Google.” This set of specifications left me panicking. How on earth was I going to come up with a meaningful name for my business that sounded as cool as Google?!

Luckily for me (or maybe not, depending on your POV) I was already in the process of rebranding my business visually when I found out I needed to shift my business name. So from a logistics standpoint, shifting my business name wouldn’t be a big deal since I was redoing everything visually already. That being said, it was difficult because I had already completed the new branding with the old business name in mind.

I spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to think of new business names. I scoured the internet for options. I looked at the dictionary for ideas. I spent a lot of time reviewing people’s instagram handles and account names. None of this helped and I was totally stuck.

What I did know is that I wanted the new name for my business to be something that reflected the shift in visual branding I was moving into. I wanted the meaning of it to align with my visual identity. This was my starting point. It was my guide ahead.

The visual branding I had created for myself had the following meaning behind it:

It reflected my love of color, which is heavily showcased in my art practice.
It showcases my ties to Guatemalan culture, which also heavily favors bright colors and patterns.
It is nuanced and sophisticated, leaving you guessing.
It was imaginative and otherworldly—something else that ties directly into my art.

With this anchor point in mind, I set myself to work.

I still had quite a bit of anxiety and panicked nights about my business name. I was worried about how the shift in my business name would affect my business growth, and I was equally worried that I couldn’t come up with anything unique to move forward with. I was stumped. But thankfully, my aunt came to the rescue.

I went over to my aunts house one day and we set ourselves up for the task of talking out different ideas for names. We were going to make it fun. Drink a glass of wine and talk it out. Get all the panic out of the situation. It was in that spirit that we went to the store to get some wine and snacks for our upcoming brainstorm session. And on the car ride to the store, the name magically came to us.

My aunt is a Spanish translator and interpreter and has been for over 20 years. Spanish was my first language growing up and it has a special place in my heart. In the car we started brainstorming words in Spanish that I could use in my business name and that’s when it came to us—arco íris. The Arcoíris Design Co.

Reasons Why My New Business Name Works

Arco íris means rainbow in Spanish. This is a perfect word to use in my business name because it reflects my love of color, which was already an important part of my visual branding shift. Plus, the word is from my first language, speaking to my connection and roots in Latin America. This is something I’ve always wanted to bring into my business, and this felt like a good first step to start that conversation and bring about that connection. So from a meaning standpoint, The Arcoíris Design Co was solid.

The next thing to do was to figure out if it was unique enough to use for my business. With my aunt’s help she explained to me that arco íris is two words in Spanish—rain bow as opposed to rainbow. This led me to the idea of squishing the words together and creating one word where there once was two. Not only would this create a new word, it could now be used as a homonym of the original word.

Plus, I was very happy to find that when I googled arco íris, there were only a few businesses using that name across the US. Furthermore, they were all in different industries than my own. This was fantastic news and meant that I now had a name that matched up with the criteria my lawyer had told me was necessary in order to trademark my business.

I had her conduct a thorough search just to triple check that I was on the right track, and once I got confirmation from her that my name was sound, I moved forward with it. I was stoked!

The Same Thing Happened to My Client

In the midst of my brand shift and business name ordeal in 2021, I shared the whole process with my audience on social media. I was vocal about it and upfront with everyone about what I was going through. I figured, this might be the only way I can save face as I shift my business name again.

While that may seem a little bit conceited, I’m so glad I did! I was able to save a client of mine from the same heartbreaking situation by sharing my business naming journey publicly.

We were working together on a branding and web design project and had just finalized her branding when she reached out to me to set up an urgent meeting. When we got together she told me that she had been following along on my business name journey and because of what I went through she decided to look into trademarking her own business name. Well, it turns out the name she had chosen for her branding was not trademarkable either!

Luckily we were at a stage in her process where we were able to salvage a lot of the branding work we had already done and shift it to the new name she had come up with for her business. The style and visual components we created were really aligned for my client, so we did our best to shift the brand in a way that minimized disturbing the style and vibe we had cultivated together. Almost everything we had created together stayed the same. Simply we needed to rework the logo designs and logomarks to contain the updated business name.

My client did end up paying an additional charge for having to rework her logos, but this was a much smaller charge than having to redo her branding again down the road. Furthermore, she didn’t have to worry about rebuilding her reputation after shifting her business name (which would have been necessary once she discovered she couldn’t trademark her name later on.) Plus, we were able to adjust the project timeline and fit in these revisions and shifts before moving into web design.

Ultimately, my client saved a lot of money looking into her brand name from a legal standpoint during our work together as opposed to looking into it after. You can learn more about her project and the exact process we went through with the business rename here in her case study.

Lessons from My Business Name Mistakes

The main takeaways from my business name journey are as follows:

Look into the legalities of your business name at the start of your business journey.
Look into the legalities of your business name prior to working with a brand or web designer.

Save yourself the hassle of having to pivot your business after it has already been established. And when in doubt, reach out to a professional for additional support.

I hope that this was helpful for you and that you take my advice seriously.