Brand Naming for Hospitality, Food and Lifestyle Brands
The name is the one decision you can't quietly change later.
You can redesign a logo. You can rebuild a website. You can move sites, change the menu and reprice the whole offer. The name is the thing everything else is attached to, and by the time you find out it's wrong, it's on the signage, the packaging, the paperwork and the reviews.
It also has to do more work than most founders expect. It has to be sayable, spellable and memorable. It has to be free to use. It has to survive the business getting bigger, opening somewhere else, or being sold. And it has to hint at something without explaining everything.
It's also, for what it's worth, the most enjoyable part of the job.
I name restaurants, cafés, hotels, food and drink brands, retail concepts and lifestyle businesses.
Names I've built businesses on
Myra, a luxury patisserie in Saudi Arabia. Chosen for meanings across Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, giving it depth in the region while leaving it free to travel.
Sipside, a coffee shop in Jeddah positioned as a social destination rather than a place that sells coffee. The name suggests sipping, seaside, sitting a while.
Sticks & Cones, a Marylebone ice cream shop. It had to sound like somewhere you'd take your kids on a Saturday and still belong on a good London street.
Mixala Chai, an experimental masala chai brand. A blend of the word itself and the spices behind it, now stocked in Holland & Barrett.
Pantry & Pasture, a dairy and ambient supply business. It had to say modern food supply to buyers without sounding like a wholesaler, or like a farm shop.
Jebena Co, a coffee brand named after the vessel at the centre of Ethiopian coffee ceremony. It gave the business a story before it had a customer.
How I name
Positioning first
I can't name a business I don't understand.
So this starts with what the business is, who it's for, where it sits and what it needs to signal. Sometimes that's a full strategy engagement, sometimes a focused session. Either way it happens before a single name is written down, because otherwise all either of us can judge names against is taste.
Territories
Rather than jumping to names, we agree the directions worth exploring.
Descriptive, evocative, founder-led, place-led, invented, heritage-rooted. Each says something different about the business and appeals to a different customer. Agreeing the territories first is what stops the process becoming a hundred names and no decision, which is where most naming exercises quietly fall apart.
Names, with the thinking
You'll get a considered shortlist rather than a spreadsheet.
Each name comes with what it means, why it works, how it sounds out loud and how it behaves set as a logo or said across a counter. We narrow down together, and I'll give you my view on which I'd choose and why.
Trademark Checks
Every name on the shortlist is checked for domain availability, social handles and against international trademark databases before it reaches you.
That's diligence rather than legal advice. Before you commit properly, a trademark attorney should clear it in the markets you care about, and I'll say so at the time rather than leaving you to find out.
An honest note about naming on its own
Almost nobody commissions a name by itself, and I'd gently suggest you shouldn't either.
A name is the first expression of a position, and it arrives at the same moment as every other founding decision. It works best as the first step of building the brand, followed by the identity, the packaging, the site and the launch, all shaped around the same idea.
If a name is genuinely all you need, I'll take it on. But if you're at the point of naming a business, you're at the point where the rest of it matters too, and doing it in one piece is cheaper and better than doing it in four.
FAQs
I am always happy to talk through the brand naming process on an introductory call. In the meantime, here are answers to the questions I am asked most often.
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A considered shortlist rather than a long list. A hundred names sounds generous, but it moves the decision onto you, and choosing between them is the hard part I'm there to help with.
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Bring it. I'll give you a straight view on whether it's working, and often the answer is that it's fine and the money is better spent elsewhere.
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I check domains, social handles and international trademark databases as part of the process. That's diligence rather than legal clearance, and a trademark attorney should confirm it in your markets before you commit.
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We go back to the territories rather than generating more names at the same problem. Usually it means the positioning needs another look.
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Yes. Most of my naming work is in hospitality, food and drink, retail and lifestyle, but I've named businesses in property, tech and professional services too.
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It depends on scope, and on whether naming sits inside a wider project. You'll get a written proposal with a fixed price before anything starts.
What are you calling it?
If you're building something and it doesn't have a name yet, that's a good moment to talk. Tell me what you're opening and I'll come back to you within a working day.