Ideas For Blog Names
I am an affiliate with links to an online retailer in this blog post. When you read what I have written about a particular product and click on that link and buy something from the retailer, I can earn a commission. Please note that I only recommend products that I truly believe in and use in my business. Please read my full disclaimer here
Now that you have decided to start a blog, it’s time to come up with some ideas for blog names. But whilst it sounds simple to do, most of us want the perfect, unique name and this can take time to decide, especially since you want your blog name to be special.
Most tutorials that teach you about starting a blog, usually say it is not necessary to spend a great deal of time on their blog name during the setting up process.
Whilst I understand why they say this, because when in the blog creation process, it’s not wise to stall the progress; a blog name for some, is what will stick with them for the lifetime of their blog and can become a true brand representing the owner.
So you really need to pay attention and take some time to craft the perfect blog name.
One piece of advice that I’d like to give you now, is that when you have decided on the perfect blog name, don’t wait too long to claim it as yours. Make sure to buy the domain name immediately.
It is acceptable to buy your domain name now but set up your blog later. The most important thing you can do to prevent your blog name from being taken is to secure your domain by making it yours.
With that out of the way, I am going to help you with some formulas so you can have some great ideas for blog names regardless of which niche you’re in.
Here’s what you will learn:
- What to consider before creating a blog name
- 10 Formulas for coming up with a blog name
What To Consider Before Creating A Blog Name
So how do people actually name their blogs?
How do they come up with ideas for blog names?
Well they might use a combination of factors such as words put together, a play on words or pun, it might be a memorable event to the blog creator or they could be SEO-savvy and create a blog name based on the niche.
Whatever method you use to create a blog name, here are a few things you should think about before you come up with blog name.
What’s your purpose for creating a blog in the first place?
Do you intend to use it for personal use only?
Do you want to create a brand?
Perhaps you may want to sell the blog later on?
Do you want it to be an affiliate niche site where you review affiliate products for profit?
Depending on what you’d like to do with the blog, you may want to reflect on the name of the blog since the blog name can accelerate your success if chosen correctly.
For example, if you want to create an affiliate niche blog, you may want to optimise it for the search engines, by using a keyword in the blog name.
If you want to sell the blog later on, using a blog name instead of your personal name may be the better option.
So decide from the start what is the purpose of creating your blog.
Who will be reading your blog?
If your blog is all about a specific movie, a name that fans of that movie are familiar with, would be more appropriate since they can easily identify to the name and immediately resonate with it.
Out of the four blog names listed below (look at the blog URL), which one stands out as being a Harry Potter blog?
BeyondHogwarts.com. Not so?
Most Harry Potter fans know about Hogwarts, the wizarding school in Harry Potter; so it is easy to identify that such a blog is about Harry Potter just by its name and so can attract the right audience.
Is this juggling your mind and opening up ideas for blog names? I hope so … 😉
What is the story behind your blog?
This is a great way to come up with ideas for blog names, since the backstory can be the biggest source of inspiration.
For example, blog owner, Amanda, of Wet Hair Don’t Care was recently interviewed by the Style Collective about the inspiration she got to naming her blog.
She said “I struggled with a name FOREVER… I had just sent her a text with a bunch names from various song lyrics I liked when she texted me back, saying, “Wet Hair, Don’t Care is still my favorite.” I responded saying I didn’t even realize that was even on the table, but I loved it. I learned how to swim before I could walk, swam competitively my whole life, and always need to be by a pool or body of water in the summer. I’ve also always had an attitude. It could not have been more perfect.”
Do you have a memory or event that you can recall that can act as inspiration?
Now that you have been able to appreciate the reason for your blog and who you want it to serve, let’s look at the many ways that you can come up with a blog name.
The goal for this post is to make the naming process easy and to inspire you to create the best blog name.
Let’s get started.
The SEO-Keyword Blog Name
One of the easiest ideas for blog names you can come up with, is one that has a keyword in it for the purposes of SEO.
This is particularly helpful if you want to focus on getting traffic from the search engines.
Maybe your blog is promoting a particular product that is frequently searched for, or you would like to attract a particular audience.
Well you can start by naming your blog after the SEO-keyword that you would like your blog to rank for.
The difficult part is however, your keyword may be competitive so it is not available.
So let’s think about this for a second.
Even if this is the case, you can still use the keyword, but add an additional word or words to the keyword to turn it into the perfect blog name.
For example, you have decided to create a blog all about Labrador Retrievers, because you would like to attract an audience that loves this breed of dog.
Well www.labradorretriever.com is already taken so what words can you add to create a blog name.
Here are some examples:
- Thelabradorretriever
- Labradorretrieverworld
- Fortheloveoflabradorretrievers
- Labradorretrieverlove
- Labradorretrieverpets
As long as you have your keyword in mind, adding simple words to it, to create the blog name, is easy.
Having a difficult time coming up with keywords that people search for? Start by using a keyword research tool.
You can use a free tool like KWFinder or a paid tool like Keysearch.
Once you have come up with a keyword, see whether the domain is already taken, to decide whether it’s a name you’d like to use or whether you’d like to add on a word to make it better.
Foreign Language Blog Name
I have seen a combination of languages to create a blog name which you can add to your ideas for blog names.
For example, it may be an English and a French word, used together to come up with a creative blog name.
If you are a native of a country, that may be an inspiration you can use, to use a combination of languages to add a flair to your blog name.
Just as TravelNoire have done – the use of the English word, travel + the french word, noire which means black, they have created a blog that is all about travel amongst people of colour.
I also stumbled upon StampingBella – a blog about rubber stamping.
The owner of StampingBella could have used the English word, beautiful instead of the Etalian word bella, but by combining both an English and Italian word, makes the final blog name not only short but different.
Don’t you think?
StampingBella adds more uniqueness than StampingBeautiful even though both mean the same thing.
The use of the foreign language term just adds a touch of character.
If you have decided to use this formula as one of your ideas for blog names, consider using an English word and then describing that word with a foreign language word.
Or why not use foreign language words instead of English?
Descriptive Blog Names
Think about what you do or the essence of what your blog is about, to help your audience easily understand what type of content they can expect.
Then use a description to describe yourself or what you do and let that be your blog name.
As is the case with Oneika Raymond from the blog Oneika The Traveller, she is a Travel Chanel host who has travelled to over 100 countries on 6 continents and shares the love of travel with her audience.
She effortlessly names her blog after herself and throws in “The Traveller” for good measure.
If you do not want to include your name in your blog name, why not simply describe what you do or describe yourself.
For example, Minimalist Baker is a food blogger that shares simple recipes that require 10 ingredients or less.
From the title you can easily determine what the blog is about without any guesswork.
Other blogs that have used descriptive blog names are:
- Fashion Mamas (http://www.fashionmamas.com) which is a blog for mothers who work in fashion, art, design, media and entertainment.
- The Football Girl (http://thefootballgirl.com/) which is a blog that provides content about NFL experiences so you can understand everything you need to know about the game of football.
- Android Authority (https://www.androidauthority.com/) which is blog that provides a valuable resource about the Android operating system.
- Joy The Baker (http://joythebaker.com/) which as you guessed is a self-taught baker, turned professional baker who blogs about baking.
So as you can see, here is another strategy you can use to get great ideas for blog names, which will help you find creative blog names when you’re just starting out.
Once you’ve thought about your perfect blog name, check to see if the domain is available and go get it.
Play On Words Blog Name
A play on words, otherwise known as a pun, is a method of exploiting different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.
Some examples of puns are:
- A horse is very stable. Here you’re playing on the word stable, because horses live in stables.
- The elephant’s opinion, carries a lot of weight. A play on the word weight, because of how heavy an elephant is.
- The life of a patient of hypertension is always at steak. A play on the word steak, which should actually be stake but one can say hypertension is due to too much steak.
I hope you get that.
So you can always play on words if you are creative enough and use that to come up with a blog name.
Here are a few examples of blogs that have done that.
- Not Jess Fashion (Not Just Fashion) https://www.notjessfashion.com
- Smitten Kitchen (Smitten Kitten) http://smittenkitchen.com/
- Decor8 (Decorate) http://decor8blog.com/
- Don’t Get Wrenched (Don’t Get Drenched) https://dontgetwrenched.wordpress.com/
- Good Financial Cents (Good Financial Sense) https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/blog/
- Girls Just Wanna Have Funds (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) http://www.girlsjustwannahavefunds.com/
Your Own Name
To avoid the hurdle of coming up with a blog name, why not just use your own name?
It’s perfectly acceptable, just like mine, instead I did not use my full name but my first name and added I Am.
Now there are times when you should not use your name as a blog name and here’s when:
If you intend to sell your blog later on, using your name for your blog makes it very hard to do so. It is easier to sell a blog that is not personally branded and you may not want to sell your personally branded blog, since you are giving away a piece of you.
Some people advise against using your name as your blog name since you lose the opportunity to tell people what your blog is about. I think this point carries little weight since if you want people to know what your blog is about and you are using the search engines to get discovered, you can easily optimise your blog with keywords that makes your blog appear when a certain keyword is entered into the search engines.
If your name is hard to spell, then I would recommend you steer away from using your name as your blog name.
You want a blog name that is easy to remember and spell so it makes it easy for your audience to go back to it if they want to.
Here are some successful bloggers who have used their own names:
- Melyssa Griffin (Marketing Blogger) https://www.melyssagriffin.com/
- Candice Nikeia (Fashion Blogger) http://www.candicenikeia.com/
- Jane Friedman (Writing Blogger) https://www.janefriedman.com/
- Jessica Sepel (Health and Nutrition Blogger) https://jessicasepel.com/
- James Altucher (Personal Development Blogger) https://jamesaltucher.com/
- Matthew Woodward (SEO Blogger) https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/
Niche-Related Popular Phrases Blog Name
If you are deciding to blog in a particular niche, it is assumed that you already know of some popular sayings in your niche that you can use and create as a blog name, if it isn’t already taken.
For example, in the affiliate marketing niche, I know that some of the terms us affiliate marketers use, are terms like:
- Crushing it
- Killing it
- Insane ROI (return on investment)
- Super affiliate
- Affiliate niche
So if I had to start over and wanted some cool ideas for blog names for my blog, I would consider these terms to create a blog name. Here’s how I would adapt some affiliate terms into blog names:
- Affiliate Crushing It
- Affiliate Killing It
- Affiliate ROI Secrets
- Girl Super Affiliate
- Niches For Profits
If you are an affiliate marketer and wanting to name your blog, those are my five suggestions. Now go forth and use it! LOL
So you do see how you can apply simple phrases in your niche and adapt it for your ideas for blog names.
Here’s how other bloggers have used this concept to create their own blog name.
The Daily Downward Dog (Yoga) (http://dailydownwarddog.com/) you may know that the downward dog is a yoga pose. Maria Santoferraro, cleverly applied the name of this pose to her blog name which is a great idea, because it helps yoga fans easily identify it as being a yoga blog without the name actually having yoga in it.
How To Geek (Tech) (http://www.howtogeek.com/) I love this blog name. LOL. It has me in stitches but it’s a great idea to include the word geek in your tech blog since the word is almost always associated with technology and anything intellectual.
GeekWire (http://www.geekwire.com/) is also another tech blog that has adapted this word to its blog name.
Where Did U Get That (Fashion) (http://wheredidugetthat.com/). Love this! And it’s so appropriately fitting, since most people when they see someone wearing something that they like, they say “where did you get that?” This blog is by Karen Blanchard who documents her personal style and street style and the best places to shop.
Just A Taste (http://www.justataste.com/). I bet you can guess what type of blog this is? If you guessed a food blog, you’re right. It’s a blog that provides recipes for every type of meal and the saying “just a taste” already gives you a feel for what you’re about to see and read.
The Three-Word Rule Blog Name
Recently I have been seeing a lot of blog names like Who What Wear, Eat Sleep Wear, Each One Money.
It appears to be a thing now, where you can put a group of three words together and that’s it.
The words do not have to relate to each other but one word seems to relate particularly to the niche to help identify what the blog is about.
Here are a few of those blog names that I came across that goes after the three word rule. You can easily put together three unrelated words, one word related to the niche and come up with your own three-word rule blog name.
Here goes:
- Who What Wear (Fashion)
- Eat Sleep Wear (Fashion & Lifestyle)
- Each One Money (Wealth Management)
- Live Learn Better (Lifestyle)
- Map Camera Travel (Travel)
- Eat Pray Workout (Fitness)
- Live Craft Love (Craft)
Two Words Joined By & Blog Name
Two words, joined by “&”, that’s it.
There goes your next blog name 😀.
I have been noticing a lot of blogs having this formula where the blog owners take two related or unrelated words and put them together with the & sign in between.
The words do not have to be related in anyway to your niche.
You can make the combination of words chic and feminine or they can be rugged and masculine.
If you’re struggling to come up with words you can use, dictionary.com to look for synonyms of words and you can start mashing them together to see how they sound to you.
Here are some blogs that have accomplished this so you can get some inspiration:
- Pumps & Iron. This is a fitness blog and takes the word pumps and the fact that most equipment is made from iron and then put them together in an effortless way.
- Sift & Pick. This is a beauty, lifestyle and travel blog, so as you can see, the words sift and pick has no direct relation to what the blog is about.
- Sequins & Stripes. A fashion and personal style blog used as an outlet for the creator’s background in fashion and textiles.
- Lilacs & Lace. A blog about sewing and knitting. Who would have thought, but there is an apparent meaning to this name.
- Green & Mustard. An interior design blog with a very odd name that from the onset does not seem to have anything to do with interior design.
- Love & Road. This is a travel blog and I suppose the word “road” gives it away.
You can see from the above examples that in some cases the words used, have nothing to do with the niche of the blog, but in other cases it does.
This is a simple way to come up with a blog name so very little thought can go into it and you can come up with a unique name.
A Play On Your Name Blog Name
Sometimes if you have a name that can be played on, in a way that it is used in everyday conversations or as part of a saying, then why not use those sayings for your blog name.
For example, my name is Dawn, which is easily used in different sayings such as dusk to dawn, coffee at dawn or before the dawn and I could have used any of these sayings as my blog name.
So if your name is used in a similar manner, why not use it for your blog name, if the name is not yet taken.
This is a very playful way of making sure that your name is part of your blog name, without actually giving it your full name.
So in the event you decided to sell the blog you can still do so, without worrying about the restriction that one would have, if they were to name their blog after their own name.
Some bloggers were able to include their name in their blog name, in an amusing way as you will see below:
- Skye Travels. This travel blog owned by Skye Class, cleverly plays on the creator’s name Skye which can also relate to the sky and being up in the air, which most travellers do.
- A Rosie Outlook. Lifestyle blog owned by Rosie Tapping, plays on her name Rosie which can also mean “rosy” as in hopeful or promising and by adding the word outlook can mean a promising or hopeful outlook. Good use of the name.
- Shugary Sweets. A food blog owned by Aimee Shugary who says “Grab a cup of coffee (or beverage of your choice) and stay with me awhile. My name is Aimee and I’m the author here behind Shugary Sweets! And yes, “SHUGARY” is spelled correctly. It’s a take on my last name.”
- BrePurposed is a painting, crafting and home decor blog by Bre Bertolini, who played on her name Bre and created the blog name BrePurposed. Just like you would repurpose things for different purposes as you may do in home decor and craft. It’s a very suitable name for a DIY blog.
Is there anyway you can adapt your name to a blog name that’s funny or charming? Let me know in the comments.
(Key)Word + Tips
So this formula is probably overused and for good reason. It is one of the easiest ways to name your blog, so it gets shown up in the search engines more often than not.
When you think about it, most people are searching for tips related to something that they want to do. For example, woodworking tips, cooking tips, dressing tips, so it makes absolute sense that if you want a chance at coming up on the search engine, then name your blog with this formula.
Now the word “tips” is a very competitive keyword, but you can reduce the competition by adding a specific keyword in front of it.
Here’s how some bloggers have used the word “tips” in their blog name:
- Handyman Tips (handymantips.org) a blog about house repairs, house improvements, interior design, landscaping, tool reviews, woodworking and DIY tips!
- DIY Tips (https://www.diy-tips.co.uk/) a blog full of helpful DIY hints and tips
- Gr8 Travel Tips (https://gr8traveltips.com/) a travel blog, which focuses on all kinds of travel tips, travel inspiration and so much more.
- My Decorating Tips (https://mydecoratingtips.com/) a home decor blog focused on family-friendly decorating.
Wrapping Up Ideas For Blog Names
Hey new blogger, there are so many ways you can come up with inspiration for your new blog.
Sometimes, you just want a blog name, which you know is something that you will work with for a long time so I get it.
You want the perfect blog name.
Hopefully my unique ideas for blog names, will give you a starting point that you can use but always remember, once you’ve found the name, secure it by making the domain name yours.
Check below to see if the name is available now with Bluehost and buy it immediately, because you never know if someone else in the internet world has it on their radar as well.
Have you come up with a cool blog name using my tips? Tell me in the comments so I can shout you out.
Cheers