How To Brainstorm Blog Name Ideas You’ll Love

How To Brainstorm Blog Name Ideas You'll Love

When you are starting a blog, Step 1 is coming up with blog name ideas. Later I’ll also take you through Step 2 how to get your own domain name and hosting, and Step 3 how to craft your site (writing your first post and how to use simple design themes on WordPress). The 4^th and final step in creating your awesome blog is when I show you how to make a simple DIY header for your site.

How to Name Your Blog

A great name can get peoples’ imaginations going even before they visit your site. Take this site’s name as an example: which one sounds like a more interesting site to visit “Blog Set-Up” or “Hatch and Scribe”.

Your blog name plays an important role. It is the first thing people see, and it can say a lot about you and your blog. Here I am going to help you come up with a blog name that you’ll love.

Get your blog name as a .com and hosting account with BlueHost. I use BlueHost for Hatch and Scribe and my home design blog Home Tree Atlas – Bonus: you get a free domain name with them. Go with the Starter Plan for only $3.95 a month

If You Get Stuck: Then check out my blogging course #BloggerLife and we can work together to launch your blog.

How Did I Come Up With the Name ‘Hatch and Scribe’?

The topic or mission behind this site is to help people start a blog of their own. With that in mind I started brainstorming words that fit into this thinking.

Helping people build their site
Helping people construct their site

I thought about other things that are made, like:

Clothing: Tailor
Food: Chef, Brew
Origami: Cut and Fold

Words like Tailor and Chef can be mashed up with words that describe the digital world of blogs:

Digital Tailor / Cyber Chef

I thought about how a blog is a person’s own little space on the Internet:

My Island / Home of Me / Through the Front Door

When I really thought about it, I wanted a name about building a blog from scratch, it is like giving birth to something new. So I went to dictionary.com and used the thesaurus to come up with some unique words. I searched for “make” and this is what came up:

Conduct / Construct / Fashion / Spawn / Hatch

If you think deeper, this site is not just about setting up a blog; it is also about helping people get started writing online. So I also used the thesaurus to search for words relating to “write” and got:

Author / Compose / Record / Scribe / Sign

After getting a ton of ideas, I started looking for words and combinations that work well together and can be told in a visual way. I chose Hatch and Scribe 1) Because it sounded unique and 2) Because I can see the kind of header/logo/brand I could create with a name like that (using things like an egg shell, a feather pen, ink, or a little duckling). I look for names that can be told visually because it makes branding the site much easier (which I’ll speak more about later).

Creative Exercises for Coming up with Blog Names

Start Brainstorming: The two rules to follow when brainstorming names for your blog are come up with as many ideas as possible, and don’t settle on the first ideas you come up with. When I worked in advertising we use to have brainstorming ‘rounds’. Take this site as an example: round 1 would be ideas like “construct” and “build” – the obvious and generic ideas. The goal was to get those ideas out of the way, because then you are only left with the good name ideas when it comes to round 2 and 3. After you’ve brainstormed a whole bunch of ideas, let them sit for a while. Do something you enjoy for a while. Then come back for round 2 of brainstorming, then rest, then round 3 of brainstorming..

Keep Asking Why: When you keep asking why, you get to the root of what your site is really about. For me it was:

This site is about helping you build a blog (word ideas: construct, build, craft, hatch, cut and fold)

Why?

So you can have your own space online (word ideas: island, my world, front door)

Why?

So you can write about your own views/opinions or share your projects (word ideas: scribe, author, signature, show and tell, fair, flea market, workshop)

Every time you come up with answers to “why”, you’ll fine new words and blog name ideas.

Different Directions: Try and look at your blog from different directions or points of view. For Hatch and Scribe , I went from building and construction ideas to ideas based on a persons space on the web (“my island”, “front door”). Another direction was based on people who build or make things like a chef, an Origami artist, or a tailor.

One way to think of different directions and naming ideas is to keep asking questions. Let’s say you are starting a fashion blog, some questions to ask would be:

Who else makes things: Fashion Chef, Fabric Mechanic, Style Sculptor
What is the opposite of fashion: Naked Fashion, Just Fabric
What do I want my site to really be about:

Dressing people up (Living Mannequin, Arms, Legs, and Fabric, Fashion Fairy)

Clothing combinations (Piece by Piece, Ransom Note, Style Palette,

Or is it about individual style (Fashion Rebels, My Island, Mirror and Me, Tear & Wear).

Using The Thesaurus: Head on over to dictionary.com and click on the thesaurus tab at the top. Think up of general words that describe what you want your blog to be about. Say you are starting a home blog, think up of general words like “home”, “decor”, and “design”, and type these words into the thesaurus and see if any unique and catchy ideas pop up.

Also think of what parts of the house can be turned into a unique name – “The Red Front Door”, “Rooftop Workshop”, “Garden Tales”, “Mary’s Living Room”. And see if these terms (“door”, “roof”, “garden”, “living room”) produce any good words in the thesaurus.

Make it Personal: A great way of coming up with a blog name is to make it personal – like the reason why you are blogging, or something unique about your story. Some examples include:

Rules and Criteria for Selecting Your Final Blog Name

You’ll want to keep it as short as possible. This will help your name be catchy and memorable. Hatch and Scribe is a good length. Four Generations One Roof is a long name, but it is simple and memorable.
Don’t use a blog name that you have to spell out to people. Hatch and Scribe vs. Hatch n Scribez, or Blog 2 Gre8.
Use a name that is brandable. This means try and avoid generic names like Blog Maker, or Home Design. Your name should have a story behind it OR a story you can build. Use a name that can be easily visualised. ‘Fashion Chef’ can have a logo of a lady in a black dress and chef’s hat, or ‘Tear and Wear’ can have a logo made out of fabric scraps.
Choose a name that you love, and keep coming up with ideas until you find one that feels right.
You want to have your blog as a .com. It looks professional, it is brandable, and it is a global domain. It does take a bit of patience and can be disappointing to find out that the name is already taken – but this takes us to the next step.

Checking if Your Blog Name is Available

This is how I do it: Only after I have a brainstormed a whole bunch of ideas do I start checking if they are available. Don’t start checking right after you’ve come up with your first name – remember you need to get a lot of ideas to get to the good ones. Checking each time will hurt your brainstorming flow.

I go to www.name.com to check if the domain name I want is available. Remember you want the .com.

What to do if the name is not available:

Go back and come up with more ideas.
If your name is short, see if you can add on another word. ‘Hatch’ would have been a great name for this site, but I already knew that wouldn’t be possible. So I looked for another word to combine it with.

Some examples and suggestions for add-ons for “Fashion Chef” would be: “Fashion Chef Mandy”, “Fashion Master Chef”, or “Fashion Urban Chef”.

Or how about changing the name slightly. Instead of using “Fashion Chef”, some other ideas include “Fashion Cook Book”, “Fashion Kitchen”, “Fashion Recipes”, or “Spicy and Sizzling Fashion”.

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Almost There – The Next Step

For me, coming up with a name you love and checking to see if it available is the hardest part of the 4 steps. The next step is a lot easier.

Once you have come up with a blog name that you love and have checked that it is available, the next step is to register the domain name and set up your blog – let’s get to it…