4 Pros And Cons Of Using A Business Name Generator

Google/Alphabet, Genentech, Nugget Market, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, etc are some popular California based company names. However, choosing a good and available company name can be hard work as there are over 28 million SMB’s in the US alone.

With startups springing up, business name availability searches soar, making it even harder to come up with good and available names.

In this article, we shall learn about business or company name generators, and x-ray the pros and cons of using one, but first,

What Are Company Name Generators?

A business name generator is an online tool that helps you automatically generate business or company name ideas for your brand or business.

How Company Name Generators Work

Most company name generators operate by prompting users to input keywords they want in the business name.

It then creates as many variations and combinations of these keyword(s) as possible, coming up with dozens even hundreds of suggestions per time.

How Results Are Broken Down

Some generators narrow results down to a specific niche, business type, target audience, type of goods or services sold, etc.

The good thing with company name generators is that they can also tell which business names and matching domains are still available.

Some Pros of using company name generators are:

1. Simple and Free to Use

Most, if not all, business name generators are free to use. You simply
● visit website or landing page
● input desired keywords
● hit “submit” or “generate” button, and that's it

This can generate hundreds and thousands of results.
Owners earn affiliate commissions from hosting companies (e.g. GoDaddy) if you eventually pick and pay for a suggested domain name.

2. Cheaper Than a Consultant

Hiring expert copywriters may be expensive for most startups. Apart from cost, there could be queues.

Great copywriters are highly sought after, you could wait days, weeks or months in some cases to book a date; and then wait some more for results.

Since business naming occurs at startup stage where funding and time may be scarce, many entrepreneurs seek alternatives.

Now, with business name generators this process can be faster and free.

3. Great Tool for Brand Consultants

Company name generators can be used as raw materials to produce finished, polished names. They can shorten the brainstorming process for copywriters and creatives.

This tool can also help with business and domain name availability search which can save consultancy time.

4. Perfect for Non-Creatives

All fingers are not equal. Not many can be like David Ogilvy, the famed copywriter whose legacies still live with us.

These set of business owners, who aren't so gifted, are content with the gift of business name generators and how it helps them with business naming.

Some Cons of using company name generators are:

1. May Stifle Creativity

Business name generators may generate generic names. This means less creative users will get poorer results than creatives who know the best keywords to feed the generators.

These online tools just aren’t quite capable of truly capturing your brand story, history, heritage and culture like skilled experts can.

2. Limits Onomatopoeia and Neologism

Onomatopoeia is a literary device that means a word or group of words that sound like what they represent. Think Meow Mix; the only cat food cats call by name.

Many others, especially in the tech industry, simply use made up names. It is called neologism, which is a newly coined word or phrase.

Business name generators suffer limitations with both onomatopoeia and neologism.

3. Leaves Out Parked Domains

Business name generators search for names in the database of registered domain names before creating name suggestions that aren’t already listed.

So what you see are names that aren’t registered to any domain. This means you’ll miss out on amazing parked domain names because parked domains are already registered and as such won't show up in company name generators.

4. Cultural Blindness

A cute company name in English may mean otherwise in another language. For instance Microsoft (China) had to tinker with Bing because it had things to do with virus in Chinese. Talk about irony.

Company name generators aren't culturally sensitive and may produce names that are offensive in other languages and cultures if the operators fail to spot and stop it before adoption and usage.

Conclusion

 
Company name generators like every other thing has its high and low points. Learning to balance these can yield amazing results when seeking company name ideas. Let us know your thoughts.

Author Bio:

Amos Onwukwe is an AWAI trained Business/Ecommerce B2B/B2C Copywriter, featured in scores of blogs including Huffington Post, Dumb Little Man, Ecommerce Nation, eCommerce Insights, Understanding Ecommerce, Result First, Floship, SmallBusinessBonfire, SmallBizClub, Successful Startup 101, Business Partner Magazine, RabidOfficeMonkey, etc.
Twitter: @amos_onwukwe
Email: amylimitx@gmail.com