How to Pick An Amazing Blog Name (With Real Examples!)

How do you come up with THE blog name?

You know, that amazing as heck blog name that is going to stick with your blog for years.

The ONE blog name that you will not get tired of.

The ONE blog name that will fit your brand vision perfectly.

The ONE blog name that’s so hard to forget, your blog readers will remember you 5 years down the road.

Winning The Blog Name Game?

Picking a blog name can be quite an intense and creative activity. I can totally resonate!

Some of you may have problems coming up with something good. While creativity is part of the blog name game, there is a science to picking an amazing blog name too!

I initially wanted to write a short article with a few tips to pick a good blog name, but this article ended up being a BEAST with a few thousand words worth of tips, so I split it into 2 parts:

Part 1: How to Pick An Amazing Blog Name (With Real Examples!)
Part 2: 8 Proven Ideas To Generate A Blog Name You Love

The first part (this article) would be all about:

• The potential pitfalls you should avoid when picking a blog name.
• The key differences between a blog name that you can grow together with, and one you’ll be dissatisfied with in a few years.

How RaelynTan.com Came About

I’ve never been a terribly creative person by any means. In fact, I’ve always had great respect for all artists, creatives or any friends of mine that could design or draw.

I know I know… I can crank out blog graphics (here’s where to find some stock images for your blog to start you off) or social media posters like clockwork (a blogger’s gotta do what she’s gotta do), but I can barely draw a decent looking stick man. 😛

A few things really helped. One of them was getting clear about where I wanted my blog to be in the long run.

Over time, I came to realize that digital marketing was my passion, and something that I wanted to do for my life. In fact, it became my identity! That gradually led to me deciding to use my name and to build my company as a personal brand, instead of creating a separate brand.

I also wanted a more personable brand. In an age where Apple is represented by Steve Jobs, Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla by Elon Musk and more, the human touch for any brand is getting increasingly important.

Consumers value branding and alignment with a brand’s values, rather than just solely focusing on the functional attributes of things they buy.

And that’s how I ended up with Raelyn Tan as my blog name. Nothing incredibly out of the world or funky as it’s my name, but personable, functional and 100% me! 🙂

What about you? Your blog name journey may be completely similar or different from mine, but we’ll get it figured out by the end of this post.

How to Choose An Amazing Blog Name

1. People Aren’t As OCD About Your Blog Name As You Think

I’ve to kick off with this, as I know that some people have been struggling with your blog name for ages.

If choosing your blog name is causing you to have severe analysis paralysis, know that just about any blog name is going to work, provided it isn’t a huge turn-off to your defined target audience.

Don’t get obsessed.

Most companies have extremely weird names, and they do not have any issues whatsoever.

The problem comes when you pigeon hole yourself into a box or your blog name becomes misaligned with what you want to achieve with your blog. (we’ll cover this later, no worries)

If you’re having severe paralysis, chill. Creativity comes at the most unexpected moments.

Which takes me to…

2. Alignment With Blog Vision

What’s your blog going to be about? Who is it going to be for? What kind of blog topics will you cover? For instance, don’t have a blog about feminine stuff, but have a masculine name!

I regret choosing the name I did – it’s The Life Jolie. Jolie is pretty in French and it’s supposed to be a roundabout way of talking about some of the beautiful things in life. I think it really just confuses people and they assume my name is Jolie. So yes, think hard about the name you choose. 
– Jessy Freiman, thelifejolie.com

Your blog name should also not result in any incorrect misconceptions about what your blog is about. For instance, if you have a health and wellness blog, do not name it healthrobotics – people will think that it is a robotics blog!

3. Don’t Get Pigeon-Holed

Don’t pigeon-hole yourself to a particular topic or a defined target audience if you know you’re going to grow beyond it.

Mine is now called Little Observationist. Before this one, I wrote Little London Observationist for 5 years but switched because I got sick of having pigeon-holed myself into being able to only write about London when I love travel, etc.
– Stephanie Sadler, LittleObservationist.com

As you grow and your blog expands, you may start wishing that you had space to write about new topics or serve additional people. It would be an utter pain in the ass to change your blog name when you are established. Keep this in mind!

4. Does It Feel Good?

Sometimes, your intuition is the best judge. If your blog name doesn’t make you feel good, the whole point of choosing a good blog name is defeated.

The best blog names are those that you hold dear to your heart, or find cool, funny and/or catchy.

I’m The Domesticated Blonde. Naturally, I have blonde hair lol, and the domesticated part is a joke because when my husband and I first got together, I was the farthest thing from domesticated; I couldn’t cook, nothing. I’ve been learning as I go!
– Angela Balasevicius, thedomesticatedblonde.com

I write about travel and life pretty much. When deciding my name I thought about what my favourite words were as I didn’t want to be just a travel blog. So my name is Enchanted Serendipity. My two favourite words and fitting since serendipity means a fortunate accident and when those occur, it’s pretty enchanting so it really fits my niche anyway too ?
-Tony Frazer, enchantedserendipity.com

5. Is The Domain Name Available?

If the domain name is not available, you need to pivot.

Mine’s Lyssy Creates. I wanted The Habit Project at first, because I blog about the creative habit, but I found out that the .com for that domain was taken.
– Lysandra Lu, lyssycreates.com

My blog is called “Simply Save” and picking the name was honestly the hardest part! I wish I’d have made sure the url was available. I started with a free wordpress blog, so Simply Save was available, but when I switched to self hosted a few years later it was not, so I had to add MN behind it (for Minnesota)
– Heather Shue, simplysavemn.com

6. Short and Sweet, Easy To Read, Easy to Pronounce

Your blog name has to be short, sweet and intuitive.

I can’t name the countless number of situations whereby having a long and complicated blog name will handicap you:

• It’s hard for new visitors to remember your name
• It’s hard for someone to type your blog name to recommend it to someone else
• It’s hard for someone to remember your name
• It’s hard to post your blog name on twitter and say something significant because your blog name takes up so many characters
• etc.

The reason I started my blog was because I wanted to get some things off my chest about my Sons Acquired Brain Injury (A.B.I). Well. ABI wasnt available so I chose Amazing Beautiful Individual… HOWEVER If I could go back I would have probably chosen something shorter.
– Kate Shelby, amazingbeautifulindividual.com

So keep this in mind when you craft your blog name!

7. It’s Tempting, But Say No To Keyword Stuffing

Do not choose your blog name just to rank for certain keywords. While this may have worked in the past, it is no longer as effective today.

If you’re building a strong and thriving blog + biz brand, your focus should not be on choosing a name that will game the search engines, but on creating something that resonates with you and your audience.

(Unless, of course, it’s a very nice coincidence that your blog topic happens to be a keyword that Google likes too)

8. Fit Your Long-Term Vision

In 5-10 years, what do you envision your blog to be like? Does your blog name fit into this long-term vision of yours?

Your blog name should empower you in the long run, not limit you.

9. Will You Be Proud To Say It Out Loud To Others?

And finally, the last test… are you proud of saying it out loud?

I know this sounds like a random test. You’ll be surprised how often we come up with something that sounds cool in our heads, but when we try to say it out loud, it sounds awkward or weird.

Does it feel weird coming out of your mouth? Otherwise, you will need to pivot 🙂

Putting It All Together

Wow, that was a beast of an article! Here’s a short summary.

9 Tips To Get An Amazing Blog Name:

• Don’t get too obsessed
• Align your blog name with your blog vision
• Don’t pigeon-hole yourself into specific topics/ audience if you know you want to go beyond that in the future
• Does it feel good?
• Is the domain name available?
• Do not use a blog name simply to rank for certain keywords
• Does it fit your long-term vision for your brand?
• Will you be proud to say it out loud?

Now that you know what makes an amazing blog name, let’s move on to some ideas for you to generate your blog name!

Continue on to part 2: 8 Proven Ideas To Generate A Blog Name You Love

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