Finding the perfect bakery name

Written by: Denisse Vazquez for Little Island Bakery

Oh!, the bakery name. One of the things we think about when we decided to open our Little Island Bakery. Do you know that a name have a great influence in your customers? A great business with the wrong name can find it difficult to be appreciated.

Then, what are the steps on choosing an attractive, good looking name like ours? (yeah! I know, genius! right?)

We are listing the steps we followed on choosing our distinctive name, and,,, ,just like a recipe! you can also follow the steps on finding the best name for your food business.

1 Start with an idea.

Think about how do you want people to perceive your business. A business name is just as important as the product.

Yes! what do you think will be written in that business card or sticker attached to all of your products? How will people identify YOU and how can they distinguish you from all of the products and businesses out there.

2 Tell a Story.

Make sure you name tells everybody what your business is about. How can you do this?

• Use your name or nickname. If you get lucky enough, your name can be just enough to tell your story. Maybe you have a catchy name or nickname like The Pioneer Woman.
• Use your materials. "The rolling Pin", "The cookie cutter", are great names for bakeries and will give people the message of what you are all about.
• Use adjectives. "The Sweet and Sour Shop", for example, uses adjectives to describe what the business is about.
• Use a theme. "Little Island Bakery" Yes! This is our secret. We use our main theme to create our unique little bakery. And we also incorporated our adjective "Little" because we are referring to a little island in the Caribbean, can you guess which one?
• Use your products. Baking bread? cupcakes? Great bakeries and food business use their main product as their name ... and it works! Look for example DC Cupcakes. Which incorporate the cupcakes in their name.

3 Keep it simple.

Make sure even a kid can pronounce your name. It is difficult to get someone to like "The Flinsmitsnmr" and ask for it by name. If your audience include kids and families in general make sure kids can name your business when asking mom, dad or grandma to take them there.

Or, do you think, big brands like Walmart, Chik-Fil-A and others did not gave this a thought?

Make sure your name is catchy but simple. You wouldn't want to stick to a very long name that people may have to type in google trying to find you.

At the Beginning we thought about calling ourselves, Little Enchanted Island Bakery (yeah! suuuper long) but, after trying to pronounce it for a while we got rid of the "enchanted" part. It was just enough with our "Little Island Bakery" name.

4 Ask for feedback.

Tell your family, friends, your mentors about your name and make sure to listen to their feedback. As for our name, we didn't knew it was too long until we shared it and someone told us that "It was a great, but long name".

5 Make sure it's unique.

Oh! The temptation. Be creative. Be unique. Do not try to copy others name you will gain too much enemies in the process and what better than a brand that you could build yourself.  No one like others stealing your name.

6 Beware of Trademarks.

It is not good to be called a thief. OR even worse! go to the jail for it.

Trademarks are an important part of a business and trademarked business like Michaels, Walmart, Target and others, made it possible to become a trademarked or copyrighted name and they're willing to sue you if you use their trademarked name. Same with other bakeries and business. You don't want to name yourself "Little Island Bakery" or "Little Enchanted Island Bakery" because you would be stealing another company name (lol, ours!) or you don't want to name yourself Sprinkles because that is the name of a well recognized "cupcakery" in the US.

Don't know if the name you want is trademarked? Go to the US Trademark and Patent website to find out > www.uspto.gov

7 Find your Social Media Power.

Make sure your name is not taken on Facebook, Instagram, and all of the other major social media sites. Been able to identify you by your name on these social media pages will be a great asset to your company.

8 Stick to it!

Once you found it. Use it and make it yours. Make sure everything you do is identified with this name and stick to a uniform idea.

Have more ideas? Found your name? Tell us more about it in the comments section.

100 Food Business name ideas

Still haven't found a name? You can try finding one from the list > 100 bakery name ideas