How to Choose a Good Blog Name (11 Practical Tips)

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This guide shares 11 practical tips on how to come up with a good name for your new blog so that you never have to change it!

One of the most important steps in starting a new WordPress blog is choosing a good blog name. Far too often, new bloggers register a domain too quickly, only to find out months or years later that their chosen blog name is not the best one.

There can be various reasons why a blog name may need to be changed down the track. Perhaps the name doesn’t reflect the niche well enough. Or maybe the name is a bit awkward, or too long and complicated for people to remember.

Below are 11 tips to help you be creative and find a good blog name for your very own corner of the Internet. These tips assume that you have already decided on the niche of your new blog. All you need now is that perfect name!

1. Don’t Rush

Okay, this may be obvious for some, but seriously, don’t rush picking a blog name. The name of your blog should ideally be a permanent decision.

You should consider all the options when choosing a blog name and be 100% sure that you have found the perfect name.

Think about the potential consequences when you need to change your blog name down the track:

• Change the domain name:
  If you change your blog name, most likely you will also need to change your domain name. Changing a domain name is risky as it may lead to traffic loss. This means you will need to implement all the necessary steps so that Google and other search engines still love your (new) blog as much as they did your previous blog.
• Change social media accounts:

Some social media channels don’t allow you to move your followers across, so you will need to start from scratch. What if you already had 1000s of likes on Facebook? You really don’t want to lose that social reach.

There are many more things to consider when changing domains. So trust me when I say that this is the last thing you want to do.

In other words, don’t rush. Take as much time as you need when choosing a creative and good blog name.

2. Go for Short and Catchy

Go for a blog name that is short, catchy, and easy to remember and spell.

While it may not always be possible to fit all these 4 criteria, it’s important to consider them all when going through the process of choosing a blog name.

Ultimately, you want people to be able to find you on the Internet. A short and catchy name definitely helps with that. A long and boring name simply doesn’t stick in people’s minds.

Another important reason why short is better is that your blog name is typically part of the title of your WordPress blog posts.

A typical format for a blog post title is this:

“Optimized Blog Post Title | Your Blog Name”

You can probably see the issue here. The longer the name of your blog, the less space you have to optimize the blog post title, which can negatively impact your SEO and branding efforts.

So, use your creativity to find that short and catchy blog name that sticks!

Example of a Bad Blog Name

Here’s an example of a not-so-good blog name.

Let’s say your name is John, and you want to start a travel blog. You don’t want to spend too much time coming up with a name for your new blog because you want to start writing about your exciting travel adventures ASAP!

So you decide to call your new blog “John’s Exciting Travel Adventures“.

Can you see the issues here? It’s simply not a good blog name. It’s too long, it’s quite boring, it’s very generic, and it’s also very forgettable. Just no.

3. Don’t Go Too Narrow

If you have a specific niche in mind, a mistake I often see people making is choosing a blog name that is too specific.

For example, let’s say you want to start a blog about travel in Europe. You choose a cool blog name that includes the word Europe.

But two years later, when your blog has grown, you find that Europe is too small a niche, and you desperately want to write about other destinations, too. Your blog name then stops you from doing that.

So the challenge for you is to find a blog name that reflects your niche or your topic(s) and, at the same time, doesn’t prevent you from branching out to new (sub)niches and topics.

4. Think Twice About Using Your Own Name

You may also want to think twice about using your personal name in the domain. It could make sense if you’re running a sole trader business that is all about you, or if you’re a writer and you want to promote your books.

But otherwise, a catchy and memorable name for your blog may work better in the long term than using your personal name.

5. Don’t Use Numbers or Special Characters

Numbers and special characters usually don’t belong in a blog or domain name. Numbers, maybe, but only if your brand name includes a number. Special characters, however, should always be avoided.

Also, don’t use hyphens. They are very old-school. Hyphens are often used to make domain names better readable or to avoid really awkward concatenated words.

Here are a few examples of domains where hyphens could or should have been used to avoid ending up with something unintentionally awkward.

• Dickson Web:
  Their URL used to be dicksonweb dot com. Not a good look, obviously. 🙂
• Speed of Art:
  The URL is speedofart dot com, which, unfortunately, can be read in multiple ways.

While hyphens could have saved the awkwardness here, if you feel that you need to use hyphens for these reasons, it may be best to search for a new blog name.

6. Avoid Brand Names and Trademarks

You will also need to avoid using – parts of – commercial brands or trademarks in your domain because you may be violating copyrights.

For example, if you enjoy driving your new Mazda around in the city and want to blog about it, it’s probably better to use the word “car” rather than “mazda” in your domain.

In this case, ilovemynewcar dot com would work much better than ilovemynewmazda dot com. And not just for copyright reasons!

7. Ask ChatGPT

Use AI to help you find a new blog name!

The most obvious AI tool right now is ChatGPT, but there are many others. I use ChatGPT as a virtual assistant on a daily basis, and it’s proven to be a huge timesaver.

So go ahead and ask ChatGPT for ideas for a name for your new blog. In the above screenshot, I explain to ChatGPT that I am starting a new blog about kitchen tools. I then ask it to give me a list of catchy blog names. It’s that easy!

If you’re not happy with the output ChatGPT is giving you, keep finetuning the prompt until you get a good result.

8. Use a Blog Name Generator or Thesaurus

There are tools and apps for everything nowadays, so it’s no surprise that there are also tools out there that can help you come up with names for your blog.

Some of these tools are actually very helpful and can be best used as part of a brainstorming session. Here are some examples:

Thesaurus

Thesaurus is a great tool that helps you find synonyms for words. This is super useful when trying to come up with a new name for your blog, as it helps you think outside the box.

Sometimes, all you need is that one word or phrase that really hits the spot, and that is what a thesaurus can do for you.

Lean Domain Search

Lean Domain Search is an excellent tool that generates a long list of name ideas based on your chosen word or words.

It is based on the concept of combining two or more words with one of the words being directly related to your blog’s purpose.

Wordoid

If you’re looking to include made-up words in your blog name, Wordoid is a great tool to try out.

Wordoids are essentially made-up words that look unique and sound natural and are great for naming new blogs and businesses.

Wordoid is quite an intelligent naming tool, and it is great for finding that catchy and brandable blog name.

9. Ask Your Peers

You can ask your friends, colleagues, and family for assistance.

You can do so at the beginning of the process, for example, by organizing a brainstorming session. The people around you often have the best ideas and can come up with things that you would have never thought of.

Keep a list of their ideas; you never know, perhaps the perfect name will end up on that very same list.

You can also use your peers at the end of the process. Once you have found a good blog name and done all the checks, it’s a good idea to share this name with your friends. While you may love that new name, your friends may think differently.

And it could well be that they have valid reasons to dislike the name you’ve come up with. Reasons that you may have overlooked.

10. Choose the Right TLD

TLD stands for Top Level Domain, and currently, there are more than 1,500 of them. This ever-expanding list of TLDs is maintained by IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

The .com TLD is still, by far, the most recognizable and most used TLD, followed by .org and .net. Most TLDs serve a purpose. For example, .gov is reserved for government websites. Countries also have specific domain extensions.

Lots of new, trendy TLDs are being released regularly, and while it may be fun to have a trendy TLD, it’s not always the right choice.

If you have a fantastic blog name that people can remember, they may not be able to find your website if the TLD you’ve chosen is unusual.

I would personally always go for a .com TLD unless there is a compelling reason to choose a different one.

11. Check Domain Availability

Can you imagine life without the Internet? I can’t. The Internet has exploded in the last couple of decades, and sadly, this also means that a lot of domains are simply not available anymore. Domains are big business!

If you’ve spent a lot of time brainstorming your new blog name, only to find out that the corresponding domain name is taken, it sucks. But that’s the reality these days.

As soon as you have a blog name in mind, it’s best to check the domain name availability. A good place to do this is Namecheap. If your chosen domain name is not available, they will spit out alternatives with different TLDs.

If you don’t like the alternatives, it’s back to the drawing board to find a new blog name.