Dec 18, 2013 / Beginner

Choosing the Perfect Blog Name: She’s a Maineiac

A Q&A with Darla, the blogger at She’s a Maineiac, on how she picked her blog name.

We’ve chatted with a number of bloggers on how they chose their blog names, from Talking Covers to The Goat That Wrote. Today, let’s sit down with Darla, the blogger and mother of two behind She’s a Maineiac.

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What’s the story behind your blog name, She’s a Maineiac?

In the beginning, I had no clue what my blog was going to be about. Though I knew I’d occasionally write about my kids, I didn’t want it to be pegged as only a parenting blog. I needed a general name — something that hinted at my slightly wackadoodle New England personality. I happened to see the local ice hockey team, the Lewiston MAINEiacs, on TV, and from there, the name of my blog was born.

Do you have tips for bloggers who want to create a personal online space — not necessarily focused on one niche — but aren’t sure what to name it?

She's a MaineiacIf you’re struggling with a name, I think it’s important to figure out in what basic direction you want your blog to go. What part of your life will you primarily focus on? What image do you want to cultivate? What type of writing style do you have?

Then, try listing adjectives that describe your personality, and play around with the words until you can tweak them into a name that’s catchy but uniquely “you.” Puns always work well. Start with certain common phrases, songs, and literary titles, and then mix the words up. Or use your own name in a clever way.

Finding that one succinct and original name can be challenging. (I was close to naming my blog She’s A Montanaiac, but I’m not from Montana!)

Got advice for new bloggers thinking of buying a custom domain name?

Purchasing my own domain name was a big step for me because it felt like my little corner of the internet became more permanent.

Purchasing my own domain name was a big step for me because it felt like my little corner of the internet became more permanent. Plus, like most bloggers, my blog is my baby, so I wanted to protect it.

Knowing that no one else could claim my domain name boosted my confidence as a writer and prompted me to start getting serious about blogging. And by “serious,” I mean having way more fun than should be legally allowed.

Do you use this name elsewhere to promote your blog?

I also use She’s a Maineiac on Twitter and Facebook. At first, I didn’t pay any attention to branding, mainly because I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go in with my blog. But the more I wrote and developed a loyal audience, the more my blog’s “persona” developed. My writing evolved into more blunt self-deprecating humor, so I became known as the “plaid-wearing, coffee-drinking, maniac” blogger. It suited me just fine because that is really who I am, so I ran with it.

I think the important thing to remember is no one else out there in the blogosphere is quite like you.

Now, I realize branding is key to getting people to recognize and remember your blog when you’re posting on various social media sites. But I didn’t start out with any master plan: it completely transformed on its own over the first year of blogging.

I think the important thing to remember is no one else out there in the blogosphere is quite like you. Let your true self shine and your blog will grow.

You’ve been blogging on this site for several years now. You’re still happy with this name, then?

Absolutely! I still love my name because it describes my blog perfectly. And this is in spite of the fact I hear the song “She’s a Maniac” from the movie Flashdance playing in my head whenever I see it.

The only thing I’d change is the word “Maineiac” because it tends to be misspelled a lot. I could have stuck a hyphen in there to emphasize I’m from Maine, and not just some loopy blogger who can’t spell. Even though that’s true.

Tip from The Daily Post: Carefully consider your name before buying the domain, and use a tool to see if the name you want is available. If you’re interested in learning more about domains, visit the All About Domains support page, as well as these handy posts:

Thanks for chatting with us, Darla!

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  3. Mine is a combination of “polyglot” (because I’m a linguist) and Ottawa (my home town). It also incorporates by three initials. I Googled “polyglottawa”, and there were no hits, so I adopted it!

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  4. I used a simple literary reference. Sometimes I wish my test blog were my real blog’s URL and title but somehow I don’t think blacklightcandelabra is as easy to remember as bumblepuppies. That title might also necessitate a darker blog design than I wanted to have for what’s usually a humor blog…

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  5. You are so right about choosing a name and then buying a domain name … I have just gone through the experience and I thought my name was going to be so original ! But as you say, there is no-one quite like us is the blogosphere:) Great article!

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  6. “She’s a Maineiac” is a great title! Of course, I suspect I’ll have the song stuck in my head for the rest of the night now, but oh, well. Better than that stupid fox song. 🙂

    My blog’s title is Suddenly they all died. The end. It came from a short story I wrote with a friend back in high school. When I started my blog, I decided to take a stab at writing short stories, and a lot of them ended the same way as that first one (you know, “Suddenly they all died. The end.”). It was mostly just an excuse to not write through the hard parts, which is something I try to do now.

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  15. I have been blogging for a few months with just a generic name….”bishfam”
    I do want to change it at some point so it’s a little more “me”….Is that ok??? or am I supposed to have “my name” figured out now?? Thanks!

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  17. Love, love,love this post, your blog, your name, your blog’s name and your state. What’s not to love (OK, your governor, but that’s not your fault!).

    XXXXXX

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    1. Thank you kindly. Yep, we’ve got Stephen King but also Paul LePage. Only one more year left with him, Elyse. One. Year. (praying we don’t make the same mistake and vote for this guy AGAIN, not that most of us voting for him the first time…)

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  18. Many years ago, I used to play pen and paper RPGs, in several of which I had a dwarven character named Stonehead. I also used to go rock climbing, where I earned the nickname Stonehead as any debris would inevitably fall on my head and no one else’s. Much later, my parents-in-law gave me an Easter Island style stone head for the garden (no, not quite that big). Next, my wife and I bought a croft (smallholding) with the name Stonehead Croft. So I didn’t have to think for more than 30 seconds before choosing to rename my blog to Musings from a Stonehead when I first moved it to WordPress. (Before that, it had several other names but none were as good a fit as Stonehead has proved to be.) Nowadays, more people known me as Stonehead than ever knew me by my actual name.

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    1. Great story. In a way, if the name of your blog comes to you suddenly and you instantly love it, you feel like you’ve struck gold. That’s what happened with me, too. Once I had my name, I knew it was me.

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      1. It’s great, isn’t it when you immediately recognise the name as being “right”? What I didn’t expect was that it would displace/replace my actual name or that my online persona would in some ways develop it’s own separate personality. I can be surreal at times.

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  19. I’m with Speaker7, except I imagine you on he stage gyrating with a baton and then doing the running back flip off the wall. Then stopping to pick up said baton, say a bad word, then sip on a plaid cup. Some might call that successful branding. Your blog name suits you! I’m delighted you’ve found your foothold here on WP. Keep up the great posts. You have been an inspiration to me!

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    1. Thanks, Shan, that means a lot to me. I guess for me “branding” is just being yourself? Now you can picture me twirling that baton while wearing plaid and singing,
      “…I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me! What else can I be but what I am…”

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    1. Thanks, Susie. I should give credit to Angie Z. (Childhood Relived) for the push to start branding. I was experimenting with lots of taglines and avatars and she said to me: “Darla, for god’s sake pick something and stick with it already!” I guess she was right.

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  22. I love reading about how other people picked their blog names! So fun. And I think it’s a great name although I didn’t catch on to the Maine thing at first…. oops!

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  23. Darla, I love your blog, its name and your inspired tweaking of the hockey team’s nomenclature. I’m a bit of a name trying, domain buying spendthrift myself. When I started my blog last year, I mused about what it was for. I had retired unexpectedly, due to a bike accident and other reasons, and I didn’t know who I was anymore. Traditional “retirement” didn’t feel right, and physically and mentally, I wasn’t the same as I had been. So I started trying to do some small new thing every day to see what resonated with me. I called them my “small daily adventures”. I started my blog on WordPress.com as Daily Adventure Log – thinking it was to be a record of my adventures. Then everyone misheard it as Daily Adventure Blog, so I purchased that domain too and pointed it also to dailyadventurelog.com. Then I decided I wanted to podcast and that log didn’t sound right as a podcast title. I also wanted to feature more stories from others so it morphed into a wordpress.org blog renamed Daily Adventure Tales.

    That was a fine and dandy decision for the blog, but let me tell you I regret having the word “Daily” in my podcast title, since my podcast is weekly and that is work enough, However, Weekly Adventure Tales isn’t in my retirement budget and I’m branded now as Daily Adventure Tales. Keep up the fine work, it is a bright spot in my day to come visit Ms. Plaid-Coffee-Drinker from Maine.

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    1. You have a great story behind your blog’s name. I love the idea that you’re trying new adventures in life and writing about it. You sound like me, three years ago when I started blogging, I felt like I had lost a big chunk of my identity being known only as “Mom” for years, so I wanted to get back into my creative side again.

      A friend of mine pushed me into blogging and I was really reluctant. I had no idea what a blog even was when I signed up to WordPress. It’s been a fun ride letting my blog develop on its own and I have readers like you to thank for that. Thanks for reading and best of luck to you and your blog.

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  26. Thanks for the post – makes good reading. I suppose I ought to tell you how mine came about… I was on a course learning how to start a blog for learners of English and we had think up a name in about 30 seconds flat. Inspiration hit, like Ned (see above) and I thought if anyone ever saw my blog I wanted it to be the accidental discovery of something pleasant and useful. SERENDIPITY! So, since I’m called Helen, the blog became HELENDIPITY! How’s that for corny!

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  27. I love your blog Darla and its name. People never ask about my writing website, http://reneejohnsonwrites.com – self-explanatory – but they often ask about my fun and personal site, http://writingfeemail.com. As a postal worker I received the nickname fee-mailman years and years ago. When I started writing, I naturally told people I was just a writing fee-mailman which of course became the shortened version of writingfeemail. It stuck. Not glamorous, but those who are familiar with my site are probably nodding and going, aha! So now you know.

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  28. My blog is simply called ‘blog #3’ because it’s my third attempt at having a blog, and has worked the best because I actually decided to put my heart and effort into it this time. It’s simple – but you’ll have to explore my blog first in order to find out what it is I post! 😉

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