How did I pick my business name? February Blog Carnival

The Starving Jewelry Artists Team sponsors a blog carnival each month.  Click the links at the end of the post to read the participating blogs.

New business owners often ask how to choose a name.  Some people use their own name, or a loved one’s name, or try to find a cute name.

Well, I couldn’t see having to spell both of my names over and over for people (trust me; you would think a name like Carole Carlson would be a no-brainer, but it’s not).  I wasn’t going to name my business after my cats (Voodoo, Tuxedo and Isis), or my kids (Lizandrew? Drewlizzie?), and while I often want to call my husband Silly Billy, that didn’t have quite the, hmmm, how shall I put it, the tone I wanted my business name to portray.  And cute names, well, that’s just not me.  Not that I don’t like them.  I just can’t think of them.

So I sat down with my Creative Director (the aforementioned Liz), and we started to kick ideas around.  One thing we both thought was important was that you be able to tell what it is we sell from the name.  Since we make beaded jewelry, we thought that the word “bead” should be in there somewhere, but we didn’t want anything that was done to death.  We also could foresee a time when we might branch out into more than just beaded jewelry, which as it turns out, we have.

I can’t remember all the names we discarded, but I do remember that we started talking about our ideal customer and what she was like.  Liz is a fashionista, and I am a CPA, so our ideal customer is a woman who likes to (or has to) dress up a bit, who has a sense of style, and likes to play with it a little. Even when she dresses down, she wants to look put together.  In a word, she is sophisticated. 

And that’s how we came up with our name:  Bead Sophisticate.  Even though it has the word “bead” in it, it sort of sounds like “be sophisticated”, so we thought it would convey the right image, and would be flexible enough to allow us to include other media besides beads.

Now all we have to do is come up with a logo.

Here are the links to the other blogs in the Starving Artist Blog Carnival:

 http://galadryl.blog…g-carnival.htmlhttp://j3jeannesjems…iness-name.html

http://famileejewels…ts-in-name.html

http://orefined.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-orefined.html

http://thisnortherng…igins-of-a-name

link

 http://islandgirlsin…nival-blog.html

http://paintinbyfaith.blogspot.com/

http://beadsire.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-blog-carnival-story-behind.html

And here’s a link to our team blog:

http://starvingartiststeam.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-carnival-february-2011.html