From Idea to Identity: How Entrepreneurs Named Their Businesses
Ashok - CBNation Team
A business name is more than just a label—it’s the first impression people have of your brand and often the foundation of your identity. The right name can reflect your mission, personality, values, and the story behind what you do, while also helping you stand out in a competitive market.
30 Entrepreneurs share the inspiration behind their business names
From personal experiences and creative wordplay to meaningful stories and strategic branding decisions, entrepreneurs have found unique ways to name their businesses. We asked business owners and founders how they came up with their company names, and here’s what they shared:
1. Essence meets direction
Photo Credit: Nicole Hatherly
After 24 years in corporate, stepping out to found my own global brand strategy business felt daunting, so I did what I tell clients to do. I became my own client and looked for a simple “lock up” of two truths that, together, would become one name. The first was easy: Brand, because it instantly gives context. The second was the real work: what do I do differently? We often talk about our True North as our essence, the compass point you can move from and always come back to. Put the two together and it clicked: Brand True North. When a name holds both the “what” and the “why”, it stops being a label and becomes a direction.
A little over 11 years ago, when I was contemplating what to call my company, I recalled a book a mentor recommended to me. It was written for artists to help them overcome the issue of staring at a blank screen and getting out of their own way so ideas could flow. My business was about doing the same thing when it comes to money and investing, teaching people to overcome the noise and have the confidence to succeed with money. The book was called The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, and as a result, The Investor's Way was born. Every time I say the name, I recall where I was when I decided on it and why, and it still inspires me daily.
Our company, Wave, is a crm creating for membership management. The name draws on a couple of combined meanings/reasons. To begin, we needed a name that was welcoming and didn't feel, ‘corporate' or, ‘overthought', plus when it comes to members, you always want to be welcoming, so of course, you wave hello. On top of this, as our first intake of clients were all based on the Sunshine Coast, synonymous with beaches and, you guessed it, waves, that helped reinforce a name, and by extension branding, of what we rolled with.
Backstory Co. came from the idea that every business has a reason people connect with it beyond just the product or service itself. Before strategy, campaigns or content, there’s always a backstory – the experiences, values, people and purpose that shape a brand and make it memorable. I wanted a name that reflected the importance of uncovering and communicating that deeper layer, because that’s often where the strongest marketing comes from. The name also reflects the way we work as a consultancy: stepping into businesses, understanding the full picture behind the scenes, and helping shape the narrative, strategy and direction from there.
I’ve never believed a business name is what makes or breaks a company. Customers care far more about the quality of the product or service than the branding itself. In professional services, especially law, trust and results matter more than having a clever or flashy name. That’s why I kept it simple, the name tells people exactly who we are and what we do. My view is that entrepreneurs often overthink naming when they’d be better off focusing on delivering exceptional value. A strong reputation will always outweigh a creative business name.
The name came from the idea that a broker is a human switchboard. A client calls with a problem, and my job is to route them to the right lender out of 50+ on my panel. Banks give you one option: theirs. A switchboard gives you the right connection for the specific situation. Most of the businesses I work with, self-employed tradies, cafe owners, trucking operators, have been told no by a bank at least once. They don't need another lender. They need someone who knows which lender to plug them into. That's what a switchboard does.
When I was creating Neon Goat during COVID, I’ve always been someone who gets “hit” with words and meanings that instantly feel right. “Neon” represented shining a bright light on a topic that was often overlooked or awkward for families to talk about, tween and teen boys, body odour, growing up, and all the changes that come with it. “GOAT”, of course, stands for “Greatest Of All Time”, a phrase deeply embedded in teen culture. For me, it also symbolised our boys themselves: often misunderstood, underestimated, and absolutely deserving of confidence and support.
I called my firm Consort Family Law because I wanted a name that meant something. So many law firms carry surnames like monuments – projecting authority and hierarchy in a profession where clients are often already overwhelmed. The word ‘consort' suggests accompaniment rather than dominance: someone beside you supporting you, not above you. That distinction mattered to me. It still does. In a field where the lawyer's ego can quietly become the centre of gravity, I wanted to build something where the focus never drifts from the person who needs help.
I started Indigo murphy in March 2025, and after a long time in big consultancy land, I knew I needed a name that would create cut-through and resonance. My surname was always in play, but the first name took longer. My instinct was blue, a colour I’ve always associated with trust, creativity, and depth. “Blue Murphy” had obvious problems, so Indigo emerged instead: a deeper, richer blue that historically carries associations with creativity, intuition, and wisdom, which are exactly the qualities I want clients to encounter when working with the firm. There’s also something energetic about the word itself. It has forward energy, which felt right for the business I wanted to build.
Brickstowealth came to life after trying to capture the essence of what I was trying to achieve for clients and from my own journey of building wealth through property investment. “Bricks” relates to the foundation of property, while “wealth” can mean different things to different people. The ultimate goal of Brickstowealth is to help clients take control and fast-track their retirement plans so they can spend more time doing what they love. I’ve always believed property is a powerful way to build wealth because of its tangibility, the benefits of leverage, and strong capital growth potential.
I had $27 to my name and was threatened by homelessness. Newly married, with a newborn baby, a new mortgage, and no way to pay my bills, I learned how to change my brain. The new unlimited me started making my annual salary each month. People saw my transformation and asked me to teach them how to get beyond their limits.I wrote a book about it called “Life Beyond Limits,” which is now called “A Richer Way To Think”. It became a bestseller, and when I started my company, it was natural to call it “Life Beyond Limits”.
The name Primal Recovery came after a major shift in thinking. For almost a decade before launching the business, I’d had the idea of creating a wellness and recovery space called “The Zen Centre.” Before opening, I had a conversation with a friend who pointed out that strong, masculine brands created a stronger identity because the branding felt authentic and confident. That conversation changed how I approached naming the business. I started exploring names that felt more grounded, raw, human, and performance-oriented, and eventually landed on Primal Recovery.
The name was something that came about thinking many years ago when I wanted to build foster homes around the world. Unfortunately, life took a different turn, and I had to stop working on both this idea and my business to homeschool my son. It wasn't until last year that Heroes of Today was born (registered charity), the name is something close to my heart. I wanted something that resonated on many levels. Heroes was for everyone having an inner hero and Today is about letting it come out now.
When it came to choosing a business name, there was no doubt it was always going to be “Cutting Edge” something. With a surname like Cutting, it was the perfect fit no matter what business I was going to start. I ended up starting my own digital marketing business, offering Google Ads management, SEO, and blogging, and so Cutting Edge Digital was born. My logo was much harder to decide on, but after a few inspirations from different aspects of my life, I settled on lemons, as it reminded me of my grandparents who always had lemons in the garden.
When the business first started, it was called “Neon Collective.” While creative, we soon realized the name lacked clarity and didn’t communicate exactly what we did, particularly as we scaled globally in the e-commerce space. In 2018, we strategically rebranded to “Custom Neon,” a name that instantly explained our product offering and doubled as a highly valuable search term. Our journey from Neon Collective to Custom Neon was relatively seamless, but it was a strategic move necessary for realizing our global ambitions.
For me choosing a business name was simple. I wanted something that conveyed the purpose of my business and helped people understand what I do. It had to be unique enough to be found on Google but I didn't want just a made up word or hard to remember acronym that didn't tell the story. The Customer Connexion is alliterative, conveys the message of connecting businesses to their customers, it's googlable, and most importantly, the domain was available! It wasn't hard, you just have to have a purpose and be creative with how that looks.
The name Adios is the obvious translation of “goodbye,” but the choice was deliberate. I wanted something that felt lighter, more festive, and more approachable than the clinical language that usually surrounds death and end-of-life planning. It's a nod to the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos, which I witnessed during my travels in 1999. What struck me then was that death could be met with colour and celebration, not just silence and grief. That's the spirit Adios tries to carry.
I registered my business name “Front Page Web Writing” back in 2015, as at that stage I was providing web content writing that helped my clients earn a place on the all-important front page of search engine results. Over the next few years, my business offerings expanded to a suite of SEO services, leading to a rebrand in 2021 when “Front Page SEO” was born. The name sums up our aim: to get our clients on the front page of organic search so they get more clicks, calls, clients, and customers.
Before Pearl Lemon, I was running a business called Purr Traffic. It worked, but the name felt boxed into SEO and nothing else. Funny enough, I’d already played around with fruit-style branding before with a name called Kukumber. Around that time, my partner had also gotten me into using lemons as salad dressing. One night, I was searching domains on Namemesh and Namecheap and then I looked up. My partner was in the kitchen cutting lemons while wearing a pearl necklace. For whatever reason, the two words together just landed instantly: Pearl Lemon. I checked the domain, saw it was free, bought it on the spot and that was it.
When I started Menopause Resource Hub, I had to choose between a clever, memorable brand name and a descriptive, findable one. I chose findable. Women in perimenopause often don't know what's happening to them. They're searching for individual symptoms, not for “menopause support.” A clever name would have asked them to learn the brand before they got to the help. A descriptive name meets them where they already are. In a category where the audience is confused and looking for clarity, findability beats cleverness every time.
The name Creditte started as Credit. I liked what the word stood for on multiple levels. In Latin, credit means to trust. In accounting, it means to generate revenue. And you can credit someone for their work. All three meanings pointed at exactly what I wanted the firm to be. The problem was that using credit in a business name in Australia requires a banking licence, so the regulators were not going to allow it for an accounting firm. Rather than abandon the name, we adjusted the spelling to Creditte. The unconventional spelling came from a regulatory constraint that ultimately forced a better outcome.
My original business name was “Word of Mouth,” which felt fitting as a speech pathologist because almost all of my clients came through exactly that, word-of-mouth referrals. Years later, I chose “Grow & Tell Speech & OT.” The meaning felt more aligned with who I had become as a clinician and business owner. Every child grows in their own way, and every child has a story to tell, whether that’s through spoken words, sign language, gestures, or an AAC device. The name reflects my belief that communication looks different for everyone, and all children deserve to be heard.
I chose the name “Just Married Weddings” for my national marriage registry office alternative business idea when I emailed all my recently married couples asking them what they would think. I asked them what they would name a company that did what the registry office did, for couples who just want to get married without fuss or drama. One of them wrote back almost immediately and said, “Just Married Weddings.” It was perfect. In an instant, it summed up exactly what we are about. The tag line says it all: Just love, Just us, Just Married.
I have a good outlook on life and tend to reply to “how are you going?” with “I am absolutely awesome, thank you.” One day, someone said, “That should be my slogan.” So I took it one step further and made my personal brand based around Absolutely Awesome. Everyone remembers it. The two companies that came from it are named in the format Awesome [XYZ], resulting in Awesome Advisory and Awesome Contacts. In the very formal advisory industry, having a fun name has put some people off, but I believe it attracts the right kind of founders and boards.
In 2019, I was sitting at a branding meeting trying to come up with a logo and name for a new studio. They asked me what I wanted the business to represent. I told them that no matter what I'm helping somebody with, their fitness or their business, it’s not really about the fitness or the business. It’s about the flow-on effects to the rest of their life. Put simply, I just like helping people in life. The team then said, “inLIFE, let's call it that.” Wellness was later added because we’re all about connecting the dots between body and mind.
We chose the name Dubs because we wanted something young children could say easily and naturally. Kids in our age group tend to speak from the front of their mouths, so short, simple words really stick. I also wanted Dubs to become the noun people used for the product itself, the way people say “Google it” or use Thermos as a term for any hot drinks container. Four letters is a great character count to turn into a logo: short, punchy, memorable, and visually ideal for creating a strong brand identity.
I've been in marketing for over 15 years, and sometimes the smartest move is the simplest one. We could have gone with something flashy or techy-sounding, but our whole mission is to help people compare electricity rates and find the best deal. So why make them guess what we're about? The name does the heavy lifting before anyone even reads a single word on the page. The whole point of what we do is to show people they have options and don't have to accept whatever rate they're given. The name had to reflect that straightforwardness.
Honestly, it was simple. I used my last name because I wanted to build something I'd be proud to put my name on. When your name is on the door, you show up differently. Every deal, every client, and every decision reflects directly on you. Pepine is not the easiest name to pronounce, but that actually worked in our favor because it's memorable. Adding “Realty Group” made it clear we weren't a one-woman show. The name Pepine Realty Group came from a straightforward decision to put my reputation on the line and make personal accountability the foundation of the business.
I watched my husband, an electrician, wire a commercial property with three-phase power, a system engineered to provide a stronger, constant, and more reliable stream of energy. At the time, I was frustrated by seeing traditional businesses rely on erratic, short-lived marketing tactics. I wanted to build an agency that would do exactly what those electrical systems did: provide businesses with a powerful, consistent, and evolutionary stream of revenue rather than temporary sparks. It perfectly captured our strategy-first approach and mission, and so 3 Phase Marketing was born.
When looking to change the name of a business we had recently taken over, we were advised to come up with a name that repositioned all of our competitors. We are a family organic market garden that grows 100% of the vegetables we sell. At the time, other businesses were on-selling organic produce sourced from elsewhere, while our produce was grown locally, picked fresh, and of the highest quality. We wanted a name that truthfully represented ourselves while highlighting that difference. We decided on Homegrown Organics because it reflected exactly who we were and what we offered.
