Choosing a name is one of the most important parts of creating a new musical project or brand endeavour. Not sure where to start, or just out of ideas? Read on to discover our best ways of choosing your next alias.
Your artist, brand or business name needs to stand out, embody your brand values and give your audience a snapshot into what you do. Easy right? Wrong. Choosing a new alias can take days, weeks or months. We’ve compiled 5 creative ways of finding and choosing the perfect name for musicians, brands and businesses that are struggling or just unsure where to begin.
Use a thesaurus
This is a fantastic way of finding words that you may not have heard before. Finding new words this way introduces a sense of randomness and chance and may help you come across aliases you would never have thought of on your own.
Begin by writing down a list of 10 or so words you associate with your brand or musical values, then look these words up in a thesaurus. List the words you find and brain storm with them; look the words you’ve found up again. Keep trialling and experimenting until you come across a word that fits the bill.
Random generators
We know a handful of musicians who have enlisted random generators in the creation of their aliases. For example, Donald Glover used the Wu-Tang Name Generator to come up with his recognisable alias, ‘Childish Gambino’.
There are a multitude of different name generators available:
Random Name Generators – generators that will invent names of random people. You can input what influences you want and if you want first, middle or surnames included.
Random Word Generators – these will select words at random for you. Simply choose how many words you want along with other specifics and away you go.
Random Noun Generator – very similar to the previous two examples, but with nounds instead.
It’s unlikely you’ll find your brand or artist name of your dreams on your first go, but stick at it and you might unearth a random, hidden gem.
Point & see
This technique involves you grabbing a loads of books, magazines, newspapers or any other kinds of print. And now for the incredible complex process; close your eyes, open a page and point. Note down the word you land on and repeat.
This process can be long winded and will require patience. However, you might find words, or combinations of words that you find somehow embody exactly what you had in mind.
Translate
Do you have a word, or group of words your heart is set on using but won’t stand out? Translate them. There are so many different languages you can trial too that at least one will stand out to you.
Anagram it a.k.a Maria Tang
Our favourite way of coming up with artist aliases or brand names is to use an anagram generator, or a letter re-arranger. These tools can come up with words, or combinations of totally made up words that will stand out and will very likely be totally unique.
