Feb 3, 2015 / Beginner

Finding Inspiration for Your Site Title

New to WordPress.com and pondering the perfect site name? Or, been around for a while but sense the need to change? Let’s brainstorm together.

Q&As with bloggers on choosing their site names:

Where’s My Toothbrush? and Raising My Rainbow

Talking Covers

Museum in a Bottle

The Goat That Wrote

Bring Me the Head of David Dixon

She’s a Maineiac

The Importance of Being Serbian

Paper and Salt

Sass & Balderdash

Your site title is one of the first things that readers notice about your site. This title tells visitors what your site is about, but also reveals a bit about you and your personality. If you’re new to WordPress.com, you might still be pondering the perfect site name. But even people who’ve had their sites for several years may consider a name change for different reasons (a shift in the topics written about, a sharper or narrower focus, or something else).

Interested in your own domain name? Whether your site is personal, professional, or somewhere in between, you can find a WordPress.com plan that’s right for you — and all our paid plans come with a free domain.

I offered tips on selecting a site name some years back, but I think many of them still apply. Here are things to think about when choosing yours:

Keep it simple.

Your site title should be straightforward and quickly tell readers what your site is about. Sure, you’ve got a tagline and an About page to describe your site and story in more detail. But your name? Get to the point. Consider Jessica Lee’s Road Essays: two simple words to describe her site of longform travel nonfiction. Or artist Russell Jackson’s Draw the Public, which succinctly describes his passion for drawing the people around him.

A popular blog in linguistics circles, Strong Language is another example that comes to mind: it’s a no-bells-and-whistles name, leaving its tagline — “a sweary blog about swearing” — to reveal its focus.

Be specific — but not wordy.

Related Reading: What’s your UVP, or unique value proposition?

Among the millions of food or travel or parenting or photography sites out there, you want to stand out. What do you have to offer that no one else can? Think of a name that reveals your unique angle or perspective that goes beyond general (Our Family Vacations, Food Recipes for You), but doesn’t become a mouthful (Our Family Vacations and Food Recipes on a Budget).

Be succinct but focused — what about Frugal Family as an alternative for the example above, which is short yet implies various subjects? (It’s also an example of alliteration, which we’ll talk about below.)

Pair words to create playful phrases.

Those of you who are writers work with words, arrange sentences, and move things around. So, experiment and place two words side by side. Create a long list of options. Consider Word Jazz, which combines two one-syllable words to describe Matt Davis’ blog on language and linguistic creativity. Or Wit and Vinegar, which pairs two unlikely nouns and catches you off-guard. I also love the name of artist Chris Sav’s blog, Banal Muffins, where he focuses on drawing, food, and existential crises in his own unique way.

Use common phrases, but with a twist.

Some of my favorite site names mix the familiar with the unexpected. Stacy Harrison’s Revisions of Grandeur plays with the phrase “delusions of grandeur.” (A thumbs up for her tagline as well: “Life’s a draft,” which is not only a beautifully simple phrase about both writing and life, but also riffs on “life’s a bitch.”)

At Let’s Queer Things Up!, Sam Dylan Finch covers pop culture and politics from a queer, feminist perspective, and alludes to the familiar phrase “let’s clear things up” in his name. Other examples are You and Mie, which swaps the blogger’s middle name, Mie, in place of “me”; as well as Nice and Knit, a sewing and crafts blog that borrows from the phrase “nice and neat.”

Find material in quotes.

I love quotes, from passages I’ve highlighted in books to my favorite sayings from Lao Tzu, Gertrude Stein, and Andre Breton that are tattooed in my mind. Consider a quote you return to again and again — a phrase, or a big idea that moves you or reflects who you are. Can you allude to it in some way?

Technology writer Michael Sacasas at The Frailest Thing found inspiration from one of mathematician and philosopher’s Blaise Pascal’s Pensées: “Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.”

Likewise, the staff at the literary magazine Cease, Cows takes its cue from one of their favorite novels, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. At one point in the book, the main character tells his livestock: “Cease, cows, life is short.” This seeps into their tagline: “Life is short, and so is our fiction.”

Listen to words.

Experimenting with titles by writing them down is not enough — you need to say them out loud. Your site title should not only look good, but sound good. Consider alliteration, or repeating the sound of the first consonant in a series of words, as Sarah Lim does with her food and fashion blog, Denim and Dumplings. Or fall back on the pleasing sound of a rhyme, as Rosie does on her food and recipe site, Wish to Dish.

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  1. I’m really struggling with this, especially since I’d like to buy my own domain soon but I don’t know if the name that I’ve chosen (MyLifeAsBrittney) is good. Thoughts? Help? Also – how do I keep up with all the blogging 101 and Blogging U posts? I’d like to start from the beginning.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. What topics do you want your blog to be focused around? I think narrowing that down will help with a name for your blog. If it’s truly just going to be about your life and reflections, maybe something more catchy like Life with Britt, Coffee with Britt, Britt’s Life, etc.? Just some ideas.

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      1. Well, I’m a disability student whose been mainstreamed and so a to of my content covers that. But I also write about a lot of what I’ve been through and also anything I’m feeling at the moment so.

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    3. Also – how do I keep up with all the blogging 101 and Blogging U posts? I’d like to start from the beginning.

      Here is the main page for Blogging U: https://wordpress.com/dailypost/blogging-university/

      You’ll see links to each of the courses we’re running or have run in the past. Even if you’re not “enrolled” in one, you can always access the content for each course here, on their respective pages.

      The benefit of registering in course while it’s running is participating in the Commons, which is the private site where you can interact with others doing the same course. Some people love it; others don’t need it. So, that’s one thing to consider — if you follow The Daily Post you’ll see announcements to new courses that will begin soon.

      Again, you can do these courses at your own pace, so bookmark the link I mentioned above for your reference.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Musings on life—-that’s my blogs name….is it difficult to pronounce as such? And my tagline is—One life, live it well. Is it fine or should I get a new blog name? My blog is just a few weeks old. Thanks.

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    1. Kavita, “musings on life” is a fine name, but doesn’t seem to make up with your tagline. Is your blog just about your thoughts on life or are they gointo be about how to live life well? are they musing about how you live your life well? Maybe define what you want your blog to be about.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you for your feedback emnylibrarian, it’s highly appreciated! Basically I write about how to live a clutter free life in connection with emotions, relationships and the like, in the form of poems, articles and some snippets etc. One life, live it well goes to say that–you live only once, so live it well. Are they not in sync? Let me re check it .

        Liked by 1 person

  5. My blog is a mixture of life, love, health and pretty much anything I that goes through my mind (flashes) that is worthy of sharing. So I named it flashes of clarity. Now my name is Ari and cl-ARI-ty has my name in it. ❤ the name represents both: my blog and me

    Liked by 2 people

    2. Ari, on your blog, do you separate your name the same way? If you do not, I would recommend that you do, because I would not have gotten the play on your name otherwise. What is your tagline?

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Hi. We took a while to figure out our blog name. We first thought the current tag line should be the blog name. But it sounded too complex though it said exactly what we meant!

    Hopefully now its catchy enough to catch some attention.

    We knew what the content was going to be. Photographs and stories.

    But sometimes we feel the restriction – self imposed, no doubt! – that every post must have pictures. And Text. In a way we have broken the latter rule already. Though the title is technically text! (Now that is an alliteration!) We have managed at least a cover picture for each post so far. But often its hard! In fact the next draft is readu awaiting a picture!

    We would love your opinions and views.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I changed from my old blog, to a new name, Zoeprose- which i felt was more representative of my blog and also an anagram of my name ‘Zoe Rose P’. It took ages for me to work that out though!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. My girlfriend took about a year and change to come up with a name for her new stationary company. It put everything else on hold because that much importance was placed upon it. I tried to help many times, but my brutish manly ill-scatted nomenclatures fell on deaf ears.

    She and her sister finally decided on one… And then changed it again a month later. I eventually faded into the shadows and learned to nod and smile a lot.

    When I decided to start my gardening blog back in October, I too needed a catchy and available name. This time, I was steering the ship so I went into my scat mode and vomited out names left and right while she checked their availability. 20 minutes later, I got it nailed down.

    Thusly, Mind Your Dirt was born.

    Now, when I mention to passers-by that I can help them with that composting project and send them to my blog, they get a pen handy or their smartphones all fired up. I tell them to mind your dirt and they look up at me and say, “oh, I can remember that!”

    I dig that. Easy, simple and catchy.

    Liked by 3 people

  10. My blog name is Cycle Write with tag line “My words, visions and trivia along the way”. I didn’t spend much agonizing in my blog name search. When I made sure no one else was using it, I had to use it!

    Am so glad I latched onto it. Although blog covers a bit on cycling, it’s more about what one sees from the bike saddle. Blog definitely avoids being a daily cycling /training log.

    However cycling is also used as a tenuous 🙂 metaphor to link personal passions of art, culture, travel and history together in my blogging journey.

    http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com

    Liked by 1 person

  11. I’ve blogged for few years and I knew I have some bad habits, so I enrolled on Blogging 101.

    I wanted new blog name, something different. I got it from a current favourite song where it talks of driving in a yellow El Camino, listening to Howling Wolf.So http://yellowelcamino.wordpress.com it was. With the tagline of “Travelling back to blogging university, in a yellow El Camino, listening to Howling Wolf”.

    Then to my delight I found that the name translates in Spanish to the Yellow Brick Road 🙂 I now wonder where it may lead me.

    Liked by 3 people

  13. My blog name was the one thing holding me back from starting a blog! I decided to pick a song I like, so I chose “The Wonder of It All” after one of my favorite hymns. My blog isn’t about anything specific, I just like to talk about things I like! So then the name kind of went with my topics….all of it! All the things! I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or not. I’d like to be more focused on something, but nothing comes to mind!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I like your blog name – it calls me to want to read what the “wonder” is. Do you have a tagline?

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  14. I would appreciate feedback on my blog name “nana’s inspiration” I also am very new to this. It took me many months to even begin a blog because of my fears. My tagline is “living life – God’s Wisdom – my joy” My blog will describe my life and how God’s grace transformed my life and directs me daily in all of my activitie which I will talk about as my blog unfolds. Also, my tagline is really light and I don’t know how to correct this.

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  15. I have agonized over this for longer than I’ve had my blog. I left for a round the world trip in August though and knew I needed to establish it beforehand if I had any hope of documenting these memories. I just used my name, not knowing exactly what it would become and thinking it could act as a portfolio if need be. Now I have been posting from Europe and Asia and found I write honest, sometimes difficult realities of traveling the world solo and also photograph a ton. I generally try to make my posts into stories, often connecting concepts and memories that are significant to me at that time. Authenticity is important to me. I am not going to be traveling forever though and I don’t want to pigeon-hole myself into a travel blog name. I’d love any suggestions you all can come up with! Maybe it’s just in the tag line or maybe the name. I’m at a loss!

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  18. This post inspired me to go through with purchasing my domain name for my blog. I am happy with the choice, and will continue to shape it into my personal brand!

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  19. Any thoughts on my blog name?
    My reason for keeping it as “flying on empty thoughts ” my content is not fixed and random unlike photo, writing, travel blogs etc…

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  20. I have a blog for class, and I needed to change my blog name to something other than my own name…ugh! the struggle! I came to the conclusion of “Super-Sci Me.” My blog is all about TV shows and movies about the SUPERnatural, SUPERheros and SCIence fiction. For some reason playing off of McDonald’s “super size me” was the only thing I could come up with. Feedback or suggestions would be helpful!

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