The best blog names all seem to be taken – that’s the challenge that every blogger faces when they start out.
Choosing a blog name is not easy. And once you’ve decided, you have to live with it. So, you need to get it right. This article gives you 19 great formulas for choosing a blog name you won’t regret.
But before we dive in, here are 5 five key characteristics of good blog names.
Five Attributes of Good Blog Names
The best blog names:
- no more than four syllables and preferably 2 or 3
- make it pronounceable
- it should instantly tell the reader what the blog is about
- it must pass the ‘phone test’ (if you told someone the name of the blog over the phone, they could write it down without you having to spell it for them)
- it should provoke a reaction in the reader
19 Formulas For Best Blog Names
To research this article I analysed the blog names of 75 successful and well-known blogs. They all had blog names that were either witty, attention-grabbing, or memorable.I wanted to know how the best blog names are created.
This is what I found.
#1. Use Alliteration
Alliteration is a device used in many of the best blog names.
Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of each word. You often see it in newspaper headlines (e.g. “Romney In A Rout”, “Bustin Bieber”).
Alliteration is fun and grabs attention – that’s why it’s used in headlines.
Here are some examples of blog names that use alliteration:
- Savouring Simplicity (Lifestyle)
- Katie In Kansas (Lifestyle)
- Words of Williams (Personal Finance)
- Making Sense of Cents (Personal Finance)
- Cats Who Code (Web Developer)
- Pilates for the People (Exercise)
#2. Use or Adapt a Popular Saying
This is another technique that the best blog names often use. Take a popular saying, such as ‘Life in the fast lane’ and swap out one of the words for your keyword.
These kinds of blog names cause people to pause, even just for a second, as they try to recall the adage or the maxim that your blog name is based on.
It’s another way of getting attention and making something stick in the reader’s mind.
Here are some examples:
- Beside The Point (Finance)
- Heart Via Stomach (Recipes)
- Life in the Bike Lane (Fitness)
- Two Peas & Their Pod (Recipes)
- My Goodness Me (Diet & Recipes)
#3. Use a Pun
Some of the best best blog names contain a pun.
A pun is a play on words that exploits the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.
Again, the reader pauses for a fraction of a second while they figure out what the word should have been. It’s another way to be memorable.
Here are some examples:
- Turnip Your Life (Health & Fitness)
- Fit-Bottomed Girls (Health & Fitness)
- Economies of Kale (Living on a Budget)
- Peas in a Blog (Recipes)
- All Groan Up (Career Advice)
- Gin n Sardonic (Lifestyle)
- Second Star on the Wright (Lifestyle)
- Tainted Canvas (Painting)
- Budget Bytes (Living on a Budget and Recipes)
- Good Financial Cents (Personal Finance)
- My Darling Lemon Thyme (Recipes)
- Planet of the Grapes (Wine)
#4. Combine Two Concepts in One Word
The best blog names often combine two ideas or concepts in one word.
Take two words that sum up what your blog is about and put them together to make one word:
- Frugalwoods (Living on a Budget)
- Listverse (Top 10 Lists)
- WPBeginner (Blogging and WordPress)
- Blogilates (Health & Fitness)
- Copyblogger (Blogging)
- Problogger (Blogging)
- BarefootBlonde (Lifestyle & Travel)
- Yoga In Heels (Fitness & Fashion)
- Zen Habits (Self Improvement & Productivity)
#5. Keyword +Hacks
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a hack as a “simple and clever tip or technique for accomplishing some familiar task more easily and efficiently”.
So a good blog name formula is ‘hack’ plus your keyword:
- Mind Hacks (Psychology)
- StudyHacks (Study Habits)
- The Wallet Hacks Blog (Personal Finance)
- The Travel Hack (Travel)
- Life Hacks and Tips (Life Hacking)
#6. Be Purely Descriptive
Some of the best blog names are simply descriptive, without any attempt at humour or double entendre:
- Digital Photography School (Photography)
- Wholesome Cook (Recipes)
- Ramblings of a Confused 20Something (Lifestyle)
- bloggingbasics101 (Blogging)
- startbloggingonline (Blogging)
- bloggertipstricks (Blogging)
- Fluent In 3 Months (Learn a Language)
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#7. Use Some Slang
Putting some slang in your blog name will give your blog some ‘street cred’ and a dash of humor:
- Iwannabeablogger (Blogging)
- Gimme Some Oven (Recipes)
#8. Keyword +Wizard
If your blog is about helping people to do something, ‘wizard’ is a good word to have in your blog name:
- Bloggingwizard (Blogging)
- Lifestyle Wizard (Lifestyle)
- Swimming Wizard (Swimming)
- Wizard of Odds (Gambling)
#9. Be Humorous
Humor is an easy way to make a connection with people, so if you can make your blog name humorous you’re off to a good start:
- Will Run For Margaritas (Health & Fitness)
- I Can Has Cheez Burger? (Cat Memes)
- Multiple Momstrosity (Parenting)
- Olga, The Traveling Bra (Travel)
- Sad and Useless (Humor)
- Generation Meh (Personal Development)
#10. Keyword + Type of Person
I recently had to put my grandfather’s antique collection in storage, in a place called ‘Storage King’. It reminded me of a mattress company called ‘Captain Snooze’.
Keyword +type or rank of person is a well-used branding technique in the business world and it’ll work for your blog as well (nerd, geek, tyrant, boss, diva):
- Blogtyrant (Blogging)
- Financial Samurai (Personal Finance)
- WPMayor (WordPress Plugins)
- Yoga Dork (Health & Fitness)
- GeekDad (Parenting & Technology)
- MoneyGeek (Investing)
#11. Drop a Vowel
We’re all familiar with brands such as Flickr, Tumblr, Scribd, and Grindr. Dropping a vowel is a way to brand your blog as hip and cool:
- Kitchn (Recipes)
- Gardn Tips (Gardening)
- Fashn Fever (Fashion)
#12. Eat, Pray, Love (the Rule of Three)
Elizabeth Gilbert’s autobiography was a runaway best-seller and whether you enjoyed the book or not, you have to admit it had a catchy title.
Things that come in threes are known to be catchy (as in Julius Caesar’s ‘I Came, I Saw, I Conquered’, the French motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, or the oath used in courts of law “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”).
- Move Nourish Believe (Lifestyle)
- Eat, Lift and Be Happy (Lifestyle)
- Eat Run Write (Lifestyle)
- Seek Dare Love (Lifestyle)
- Body Love Wellness (Health & Fitness)
- You Me Naturally (Fashion & Beauty)
- Read Travel Become (Travel)
- Living, Learning, Eating (Lifestyle)
- Spoon Fork Bacon (Recipes)
- Think Save Retire (Personal Finance)
- Eat, Sleep, Draw [Drawing]
#13. Niche Term +Keyword
A lot of the best blog names simply add a word to your keyword that narrows down your audience to a subset of the main niche.
One of the keys to succeeding in online business is to ‘niche down’ (e.g. instead of SEO, try SEO for real estate agents).
In the first two examples below, the blogs are targeting (1) fitness for geeks or non-sporty types and (2) exercise regimes for mums:
- Nerd Fitness (Health & Fitness)
- Workout Mommy (Health & Fitness)
- Money Saving Mom (Living on a Budget)
- Stilettos and Green Juice – (Wellness)
- The Blonde Salad (Fashion)
#14. Use The Element of Surprise
If all else fails you can always grab people’s attention using surprise or even shock. This blog is about a famous Premier League football club in England:
- Arseblog [Sport – Arsenal Soccer]
- Dumb Little Man (Tips for Life)
#15. Keyword + Republic
Some of the best blog names add the word ‘republic’ to the keyword.
‘Republic’ implies that you have a very specific audience who see themselves as distinct from the rest of the world.
It’s a good way to identify with followers in a particular niche:
- Cook Republic (Recipes)
- Blogger Republic (Blogging)
- The Blonde Republic (Fashion & Beauty)
- Data Republic (IT)
- Nutrition Republic (Nutrition)
- Travel Republic (Travel)
- Front Porch Republic (Politics)
#16. Simply +Keyword
Adding ‘Simply” to your keyword is another tried and tested naming technique:
- Simply Recipes (Recipes)
- Live Simply (Lifestyle)
- Simply a Blog (Lifestyle & Recipes)
- Simply Cycling (Outdoors & Fitness)
#17. Modifier +Keyword
The best blog names often take the keyword and then add a modifier.
If you’re a baker, what kind of baker? What kind of fashionista, vegan, or gardener?
- The Lazy Baker (Recipes)
- Minimalist Baker (Recipes)
- ProBlogger (Blogging)
- Smartblogger (Blogging)
- Lazy Girl Running (Fitness)
#18. Use Your Own Name
Some people advise against using your name in the title of your blog because you’re losing an opportunity to tell people what your blog is about.
And that’s a valid point.
But here’s an advantage of naming your blog after yourself.
Blogs evolve.
A year down the track you may decide you want to change your focus slightly or even the entire topic.
That’s fine if your if your blog name is simply your name. But not so easy if you chose a very specific and descriptive name.
Here are some successful blogs named after their owners:
- Jeff Bullas (Marketing)
- Michael D Pollock (Life Coaching)
- Robbie Richards (SEO)
- Scott H. Young (Productivity & Self Improvement)
- James Clear (Productivity & Self Improvement)
- Michael Hyatt (Leadership)
- Matthew Woodward (SEO)
#19. Add Your Name to the Mix
Of course, some of the best blog names include the best of both worlds: they contain the blogger’s name and they tell people what the blog is about, all in one title:
- Deliciously Ella (Recipes)
- A Little Bit of Lisa (Parenting)
- Joanna Muses (Faith & Life)
- Miranda Writes (Writing & Publishing)
- Cookie and Kate (Recipes)
- Sally’s Baking Addiction (Baking)
Conclusion
Coming up with a great blog name is not that difficult. Just use one of these 19 formulas:
- Use Alliteration (e.g. Words of Williams)
- Use or Adapt a Popular Saying (e.g. Life in the Bike Lane)
- Use a Pun (e.g. Economies of Kale)
- Combine Two Concepts in One Word (e.g. Blogilates)
- Keyword +Hacks (e.g. The Wallet Hacks Blog)
- Be Purely Descriptive (e.g. Digital Photography School)
- Use Some Slang (e.g. Gimme Some Oven)
- Keyword +Wizard (e.g. Blogging Wizard)
- Be Humorous (e.g. Will Run For Margaritas)
- Keyword + Type of Person (e.g. Yoga Dork)
- Drop a Vowel (e.g. Fashn Fever)
- The Rule of Three (e.g. Eat Run Write)
- Niche Term +Keyword (e.g. Nerd Fitness)
- Use Shock Value (e.g. Dumb Little Man)
- Keyword + Republic (e.g. Cook Republic)
- Simply +Keyword (e.g. Simply Recipes)
- Modifier +Keyword (e.g. The Lazy Baker)
- Use Your Own Name (e.g. Jeff Bullas)
- Add Your Name to the Mix (e.g. A Little Bit of Lisa)
Have fun with it and don’t stress out!
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With the help of this post, I successfully named my blog. Thanks
Hi Manoj, thanks so much, I’m so glad it was helpful! -Rob
I don’t think you understand what alliteration is. It’s when all or most of the words start with the same letter. So, “Smitten Kitchen” and “Tiffany’s Epiphany” are not examples of alliteration. They rhyme, but that’s not what alliteration is.
Hi Sara,
Thanks for your comment.
You’re quite right (well spotted).
Alliteration is “the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.”
By that definition, these are all examples of alliteration, except for ‘Tiffany’s Epiphany’ and ‘Smitten Kitchen’:
Savouring Simplicity
Smitten Kitchen
Katie In Kansas
Words of Williams
Tiffany’s Epiphany
Making Sense of Cents
Cats Who Code
Pilates for the People
You’ll be glad to know that I’ve removed them from the list 🙂
Rob.
At last, I found my perfect name for my blog. thank you so much.
Hi Sara,
Awesome! So glad the article helped you find your perfect blog name.
Best, Rob.
Thank you sooo much Rob… your article help me a lot… this is one of the toughest step for beginner like me…. to create the name! Tqvm again…
Hi Osmadi, you’re most welcome! I’m glad it helped. All the best with your blog, Rob
Does the blog name contributes in ranking?
Hi Elena,
Thanks for your question.
It used to be that your keyword in the domain name was an important factor. But that was in the old days when search engines couldn’t understand online content. Now, with advanced latent semantic indexing, the search engines can detect for themselves what a website is about. The algorithms probably aren’t going to be influenced much by the domain name.
So short answer: it’s the content that will affect ranking and the authority that the website has for a particular topic that will affect ranking. The name of the blog (e.g. whether the keyword is in the domain name) doesn’t contribute much at all.
Hope this helps,
Rob.
Wow, it’s really very useful content you gave to us. Do you have any content or source about how to sell a domain?
Hi Anshika,
I don’t have any experience with selling domains but here a good article on that topic:
Flip Domains: 4 Steps To Selling Your First Domain
Hope this helps,
Rob.