How To Name A Jewelry Business

One of the most difficult and most important decisions you’ll make when you start making your own jewelry is what to name your jewelry business. There are lots of different ways to go about this, and no one method is completely correct for everyone. Naming your jewelry business can be a deeply personal decision and one which you may have to live with for many years. Yes, you can change or modify your jewelry business name after you’re established, but by doing so you’ll risk losing some customers and fans simply because they will go looking for your old name and not be able to find you.

Talking with others about your jewelry business name is great, but you may want to be careful about posting all your ideas to public message forums for internet search engines to find.

So how do you go about thinking up a jewelry business name? Here are some of the steps you can take:

1. Brainstorm For Jewelry Business Names: Go crazy, write down every single name you can come up with, no matter how silly, how outrageous, or how nutty the name sounds. Use adjectives, get descriptive, and do your best to keep your jewelry name wide open and don’t stick with any one theme. Think about qualities in jewelry and people you admire. Think about your favorite colors. Pull out a thesaurus and write away. Write them down even if you immediately hate a few of the business names you come up with. You want to fill a page and maybe have 50 to 100 or even more possible names.

2. Let Your List Sit: Ignore your list for a day or so. Really. You will need some “temporal distance” when you look it over again.

3. First Review: Go back and review your list, marking the ones you like and crossing out the ones you definitely don’t. Try to get it down to 10 or less names.

4. Google Away: With your good list of potential jewelry names, start plugging them into Google. You’ll want to do this for a couple reasons. First, you’ll want to see if your name is similar to another jewelry business name out there. You’ll also want to see if your creative jewelry names pull up any really off the wall (or off color) results, meaning your name has the potential for being misinterpreted. While you’re searching, also think of domain names you might want to use in the future. No, you don’t have to sell your jewelry online, but you might want to. Come away with as many names as you can.

5. Trademark Checking: If you’re serious about starting a jewelry business and you want to make sure your name is protected, you can search for any possible US Trademarks. Ultimately you may want to register your name so that no one else can use it and you will probably want to register your jewelry business name with your state and local agencies (sometimes called a “DBA” or “doing business as”).

6. Feedback Time: Okay, now that you have a few names (if you don’t, go back to step 1) you can start running them past friends, relatives and maybe even a few people who are past clients. Take survey, conduct polls, do whatever it takes to get constructive feedback. If everyone likes every name you come up with, then they’re being too polite! One word of caution: be careful about writing about your possible jewelry names on public message board forums, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or any other form of online “mass media.” Remember: your business name isn’t finalized yet and by listing all your favorites for all the world to see there’s always the chance that someone you don’t know will see it, love it, and take it before you get a chance to properly register it.

7. Second Review: Okay, do you like it? Do you love it? Does it get you excited? Does it “feel” right?

8. Congratulations, you have your jewelry business name! Or do you? Sometimes it takes a while, some it takes several tries and even some outright solicitation of advice from other people to really come up with a good business name. Sometimes you need to brainstorm again and sometimes you need to go in another direction entirely. If you’re having trouble consider looking into some “sales” oriented books that specialize in product and company naming and copywriting like the popular and affordable “Words That Sell“.

Here are some important things to consider when it comes to naming your jewelry business:

Leave Your Ego Out of It: Sure, you can have some fun and think of a jewelry business name that plays on your own name. And of course, it’s tempting to name the business after yourself, but there are some very good reasons you might not want to simply settle on “Jane’s Jewelry” and never consider anything else. For one, there could be a dozen other women who are named Jane and making their own jewelry. Secondly, you may want to consider something more flashy and more recognizable. If your jewelry business name isn’t specifically tied to your name then you may actually be able to sell your business or partner with someone else without too much trouble.

Consider Keeping It “Open Ended”: I know, you are making these amazing wire rings right now and you really want to name your jewelry business “Wanda’s Wonderful Wire Rings” but sit back and consider if you’re going to be making nothing but wire rings for the rest of your jewelry making career. You may want to use some more general business name so that you can expand into other areas of jewelry making, such as beaded necklaces, gemstone earrings or whatever other type of jewelry you enjoy making. Of course, you can always create specific names for style or piece of jewelry you make if your jewelry business name is not specific enough for you!

Avoid Strange Spellings and Pronunciations: You will have to publish your jewelry business name and tell people about it all the time, so you don’t want to have people ask, “What?” every time you announce your business name. A name that uses odd spellings is hard to remember and can often be mispronounced.

When you’re finally done take a deep breath and relax… and then start making some jewelry that lives up to your new name!