Coaching business names: how to pick one that works

A good coaching business name is easy to say, easy to spell and tells people what you do or who you are. Use your own name if you're the product and plan to stay a one-person business. Use a brand name if you want to grow, hire or sell one day. Then check it's free: company register, trade marks, domain and social handles, before you print anything.

And try not to lose sleep over it. The name does far less work than you'd think, and I'll show you what does more work further down.

Should you use your own name or a brand name?

This is the first decision, so let's get it out of the way.

Your own name works well when you are the product. People are buying you, your experience and the way you work, and your name is the one thing nobody else can copy. It's also cheap, it's easy, and it never goes out of date if you change niche later. If you start as a career coach and end up coaching new managers, "Sarah Hughes Coaching" still works. "Career Comeback Coaching" doesn't.

A brand name makes more sense if you want the business to be bigger than you. If you plan to bring in other coaches, run group programmes under one banner, or sell the business one day, it's hard to sell something with your own name on it. A brand name also helps if your name is very common, hard to spell, or already used by somebody well known.

There's a middle way too, and plenty of people use it. Your name, plus a plain line saying what you do. "Sarah Hughes, coaching for new managers." You get the personal bit and the clear bit, and you can change the second half later without starting again.

Should the name say what you do, or be clever?

Say what you do, or at least give a strong clue. I'll tell you why.

Clever names need explaining, and you won't be there to explain them. A stranger sees "Phoenix Rising" or "Inner Compass" and has no idea if you help with careers, grief, divorce or yoga. They have to click through and read to find out, and a lot of them won't bother.

Then there are the coaching words. Clarity, abundance, alignment, thrive. I think "clarity" in particular is a buzzword that hides you, because everybody uses it. Coaches often build their whole brand around words like that, and the trouble is that only coaches talk that way. Your buyer doesn't wake up thinking "I need more alignment". She wakes up thinking "I can't face another year in this job". The same goes for the line under your name on LinkedIn, and social media marketing for coaches shows how often coaches leave that one vague too.

I saw the same thing when I did marketing for driving schools between 2007 and 2019. Pupils couldn't tell one school from another, so they chose on price. When every name and every offer looks the same, people pick the cheapest. A plain, specific name won't fix that on its own, but a vague one makes it worse.

If you've not picked who you're for yet, do that first, because the name follows from it. A niche and an audience aren't the same thing is a good place to start.

Coaching business name examples, built from scratch

Here are three coaches, all made up, going from first idea to final name. The names are made up too, so don't take any of them without checking they're free.

Priya, menopause and sleep

Priya helps women in their late 40s and 50s whose sleep fell apart when the menopause started.

Her first ideas were "Serene Nights", "Luna Rising" and "Priya Patel Wellness". The first two are pretty, but a stranger can't tell what they're about, and "Luna Rising" sounds like a yoga studio. "Wellness" is so broad it could be anything from massage to meal plans.

She ends up with "Priya Patel, menopause sleep coach". It's her name, plus exactly what she does. If she ever wants a brand name for a group programme later, she can call that "The Menopause Sleep Fix" and keep her own name for the business.

Tom, new managers

Tom coaches people who've just been promoted into their first management job and are struggling with it.

His first idea was "Summit Leadership Partners". It sounds like a big firm, and that's exactly the problem. It's a one-man business, it says nothing about new managers, and there are plenty of businesses with "summit" and "leadership" in their names already.

He goes for "First Time Manager Coaching". It's plain, it's the thing his buyer would actually type, and the domain and handles are easy to remember. Tom wants to bring in a second coach in a couple of years, so a brand name suits him better than his own.

Lorna, divorce

Lorna helps women in the first year after a divorce, when they're sorting money, housing and the kids all at once.

Her first idea was "New Chapter". It's warm, but there are thousands of businesses called that, from bookshops to care homes. It would be almost impossible to get the domain, and it would be hard to stand out in a search.

She settles on "Lorna Bell, divorce coach". Her own name works because divorce is personal and women want to know who they'll be talking to. She thought about "After Divorce Coaching", and that would have been fine too.

Notice that none of these is clever. They're just clear.

How do you check a coaching business name is free?

Before you pay for a logo, a website or business cards, check the name. This bit isn't legal advice, it's what to look at so you're not caught out. If you're unsure, talk to a solicitor or a trade mark attorney where you live.

In the UK

If you're setting up a limited company, the name has to be different from names already on the register. GOV.UK's guide to choosing a company name explains the rules, including names that count as "the same as" an existing one and words you need permission to use. You can check what's taken with the Companies House name availability checker.

Then check it isn't too like a registered trade mark, using the UK trade mark search. If you're a sole trader you don't register a name the same way, but you still don't want to clash with somebody's trade mark.

In the US

The rules depend on your state. The SBA's guide to choosing a business name explains the difference between registering a business name with your state and registering a trading name (a "DBA"), and it says plainly that registering a DBA doesn't protect the name on its own. Check your state's business register, then search the federal trade mark register through the USPTO trademark search.

Everywhere

Then the practical checks, which take ten minutes:

• Search for the domain. A .com or .co.uk that matches, or nearly matches, is worth having.
• Check the handle on the social sites you'll actually use.
• Google the name in quotes and see what comes up. If another coach is using it in your country, or something you'd hate to be confused with, move on.
• Say it out loud to somebody and ask them to spell it. If they get it wrong, so will everybody you tell it to over the phone.

What about a coaching business name generator?

They're fine for a bit of fun, and sometimes they jog your memory. But they mostly spit out exactly the sort of clever, vague names I've been warning you about, because they're built on words like rise, thrive and soar. Use one if you're stuck, then put the results through the same test as everything else. Can a stranger tell what you do?

The name does less than your homepage's first line

Here's what I really want you to take away. People worry about the name for weeks and then write a homepage that nobody can understand.

When we scored 10,954 live coaching websites, 86% failed the five-second test. A stranger couldn't say what the coach did or who for, from the homepage, in about five seconds. We didn't score business names, but we didn't need to. The test is about the first thing a stranger reads, and on site after site that first line said something like "I help you find clarity and step into your power". The five-second test shows you what the ones that pass do instead.

That's why a plain name helps. It gives that first line a head start. But even a brilliant name can't do the job of the line underneath it, and an average name with a great first line will do fine. Same goes for the rest of your branding, which is why branding a coaching business is the last thing to fix, not the first.

So pick something clear, check it's free, and spend the rest of your energy on what to put on your coaching homepage. If you want to see how yours reads to a stranger, you can score your homepage against the 10,954.

Questions coaches ask about this

The figures here come from our own corpus of 10,954 scored coaching websites and 918 mapped coaching markets. How we built and scored it.

Read next

• Social media marketing for coaches starts with one line
• A niche and an audience aren't the same thing
• The five second test 86% of coaching websites fail