Well, not really naming the band, but rather naming this business. My husband’s friend, Anthony Shore at Operative Words (www.operativewords.com) has named 3 of our 4 current businesses as well as businesses my husband has had in the past. My husband called Anthony who sent some suggestions for names. There were a couple of good ones there, but nothing that really clicked for me. I went through my list of names I had been collecting over the the past few weeks, and began checking for domain name availability. I had no luck at first.
I began reading Anths great article, Five Ways to Create Great, Free Domain Names , and that helped a lot. I also visited a couple of Web sites that were suggested to me. The Web site that was the most help to me was www.panabee.com. My husband and I also looked at nameboy.com. Panabee suggests using 2 word search criteria. I began combining 2 to 4 word phrases with good luck. I made sure that the potential business names were available in Oregon first, and then Washington, as these are the states where I hope to someday do business. If the potential name passed muster, I’d add them to a running list. If not, I would move them to a failed running list so that I did not search again for a name that had been ruled out.
I remembered some ‘naming guidelines’ that my husband has used over time, such as naming the business starting with the letter A, like several of his past businesses. That seemed old school today, because so many people are sticking an “A” onto the front of their business name. Limit business names to 2 or 3 words. Like RunBrainRun, Big Red Arrow, Portland Walking Tours and Hometown Advantage, our current businesses.
I was thinking about Nike’s “Just Do It” old campaign success, and the simple “Swoosh” Logo when I had the idea for “Do More Art”. Many Tanglers want to Do More Art. I believe most people in general would like to have time to “Do More Art” if they are the art inclined type of person. Using GoDaddy, I found that the name ‘DoMoreArt.com was available’. We got the Web site right away, and a similarly named one to sit on for a while to see which we like best. So now, I have my business license application filed and the .com web site along with the TangleClasses and a few others.
Now it is time to think of a simple logo and begin collecting photos for my sites. I am thankful we have a great camera and a scanner for taking shots of classes and art and posting them.
I am still very excited that I found the name of my first business by myself without having to pay for it. My husband and Anthony both approve of my choice.