Considering that there are more than 12,000 shoe stores in the United States alone, it’s no surprise that settling on a unique name when starting a shoe business feels impossible.
Picking the right name gives potential customers an idea about your business’s services, creates a good first impression, and helps you stand out from the competition.
Are all the great names already taken? How do you come up with something fresh? And which names are available to use?
If you’re not sure how to answer those questions, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to learn my top tips for choosing a catchy name and how to make sure your favorite choices are available to use.
Learn more about the shoe store industry
Tips for Choosing the Best Name for Your Shoe Store
If you’re struggling to choose a creative shoe store name, one of the best things to do is start brainstorming. As you go through the tips outlined below, make a list of words, phrases, and terms associated with your business.
From there, you can narrow down the list and cross off ideas you don’t like.
Once you have several top considerations, we’ll walk you through how to make sure you’re allowed to use them. This last step helps you narrow down your list even more so you can make a final decision.
1. Consider the Services You Plan to Offer
A shoe store can focus on several types of customers, so it may be worth considering the products you plan to offer. Maybe you want to focus on athletic, dress, or shoes for men or women.
Add the different types of services you want to offer to your brainstorming list.
Remember to avoid anything limiting your business’s future growth if you decide to go in another direction down the road.
2. Location-Specific Terms
Many shoe stores are specific to a geographic service area. So, if that’s true for your business, consider adding a location-specific term to your business name.
You can consider things like:
- City nicknames
- Neighborhoods
- Regions or states
- And descriptive terms
However, consider what happens if you expand outside your intended service area. Does the name become limiting? If so, it’s best to avoid it if you plan to expand or change directions later.
3. Avoid Business Names That Are Hard to Pronounce, Hear, or Spell
Despite the technological advances in voice search, assistants like Siri and Alexa struggle to understand slang and other confusing words.
This could limit how often your business shows up in voice (and text-based) searches if your name is hard to spell, pronounce, or hear. Because of that, it’s important to avoid complicated words, industry jargon, and using numbers in place of letters. While having a unique shoe store name is good, being too unique may not be so good.
Keep your business name as simple and easy to remember as possible, so your target audience can easily find you.
4. Consider Alliterations and Rhyming Words
Alliterations and rhymes are catchy and easy to remember. Because of that, they make for great business names.
That said, it’s not always easy to come up with them. Start by choosing a few of your favorite words from your master brainstorming list.
Then, you can Google “words that start with L” to come up with a name like Lovely Laces or H for Happy Heels or whatever letter you’re using to create an alliteration. Alternatively, you can search “words that rhyme with _____.”
It can be time-consuming, but it’s an excellent place to start.
And don’t forget to add any exciting finds to your brainstorming list while you’re at it. Try not to overthink the names you come up with during this stage. Just write them all down, as some of the more interesting ones may spark better ideas later.
5. Steer Clear of Initials or Obscure Acronyms
Initials and unusual acronyms are hard to remember, so they typically don’t make great business names. They can also be challenging to pronounce and confusing for voice search as well.
Furthermore, there are 325 different two-letter combination possibilities in the English language. And the odds of your customers remembering the specific letters you chose are pretty small.
6. Imagery Words
Another consideration when brainstorming name ideas is whether there are industry-related words that could also lend themselves to be used in a logo. For instance, a shoe store could use a dress shoe or heels image and focus the name around the image.
Related: How to create a logo for your business.
7. Still Struggling? Try the Owner’s Name
If you’ve made it this far and are still struggling to find the best name, you can always consider using the business owner’s name or the name of an important family member. Doing so works well if the owner also plans to be the face behind the business.
Something to keep in mind is that using the owner’s name as the business name can make it more challenging to sell the business in the future.
Best List of Shoe Store Names
Here is a list of existing shoe store names that may help give you some creative ideas. While many of these names may be available for you to use, be sure to check first to be sure they can be used.
- A Runner’s Mind
- A Shoe For You
- Aching Tired Footwear
- Agape Soles Shoetique
- Alive Shoes
- All Shoes $9.95
- Aloha Feet
- Alpha Stride
- Alvarado’s Shoe Outlet
- American Shoe Factory
- Aqua Shoes & More
- Athlete’s Foot
- Bad Sneakers
- Bananas Shoes & Beyond
- Bargain Shoes
- Beach Sandals
- Bin ‘n Little Shoes
- Boomerang Footwear
- Brand Name Shoes
- Broadway Shoe
- Children’s Shoes
- Chique Shoe Boutique
- City Soles
- City Streets Shoes
- Click Footwear
- Cloud 9 Shoes
- Comfort Shoes
- Comfort Wiz Footwear
- Comfort Zone
- Cute Boots
- Dashing Footwear
- Del Mar Footwear
- Desire Shoetique
- Diabetic Shoe Source
- Discount Shoes
- Downtown Soles
- E Z Kicks
- Esprit Foot
- Factory Shoes
- Famous Footwear
- Fashion Feet
- Fashion Footwear & More
- Fetish Shoetique
- First Step Shoes
- Flip Flop Shops
- Flip Flops N More
- Foot First
- Foot Station
- Footwear Galleria Co
- Freedom Footwear
- Funky Shoes
- Gamer Shoes
- Gentlemen’s Footwear
- Gulf Coast Soles
- Happy Feet
- Happy Heels
- Happy Toes
- Her Shoe Box
- Highland Shoe Co
- Hot Heels Boutique
- Hotshot Sneakers
- Hours Footwear
- House Of Soles & Shades
- Howard’s Shoes For Children
- Incredible Feet
- Jull’s Shoetique
- Kristen’s Kloset Sandals
- Laced Up Shoes
- Little Foot
- Love 21 Shoes
- Lovely Shoes
- Luchas Shoes & Clothing
- Luxe Sneaker Boutique
- Magic Shoes USA
- Malibu Sandals
- Market Footwear
- Medic Shoes USA
- Mega Shoes
- Mila House Of Shoes
- Millions Of Shoes
- Modern Protective Footwear
- Moonlight Shoetique
- Mr. Birds Exotic Boots & Shoes
- My Closet Shoetique
- My Dirty Shoes
- My Shoe Destination
- Nashville Street Shoes
- Natural Comfort Footwear
- Nautical Footwear
- Nice Kicks
- Nothing But Soles
- Nuevo Footwear
- Obsession Foot Wear
- Okeechobee Shoes & More
- Old School Shoes
- Paragon Footwear Trading Co
- Pashion Footwear
- Perfect Pair
- Perfect Shoes
- Petit Foot
- Podiatrist Fashion Shoe Salon
- Powerful Stride
- Premium Shoe Outlet
- Primo Comfort Shoes
- Proper Fit Diabetic Shoes
- Proper Footwear
- Pumps Shoe Salon
- Purple Cat Shoes
- Racer’s Edge
- Rack Room Shoes
- Randalls Sandals
- Rapid Footwear
- Red Dancing Shoes
- Red Shoe Store
- River Shop Shoes
- Rockrooster Footwear
- Runner’s Shop
- Runway Heels
- Seacliff Shoe
- Sedona Shoe Co
- Shoe 4 Kids
- Shoe Addict
- Shoe Bar Shoetique
- Shoe Box
- Shoe Carnival
- Shoe City
- Shoe Contessa
- Shoe Crazy
- Shoe Depot
- Shoe Dreams Boutique
- Shoe Express
- Shoe Factory
- Shoe Fly
- Shoe Frenzy
- Shoe Lovers
- Shoe Mart
- Shoe On The Other Foot
- Shoe Outlet
- Shoe Palace
- Shoe Paradise
- Shoe Rack
- Shoe Shack
- Shoe Surgeon
- Shoe Unlimited
- Shoe Warehouse
- Shoe World
- Shoes & Bags
- Shoes 4 Kidz
- Shoes 4 Less
- Shoes Of America
- Shoes That Fit
- Shop House Of Heels
- Slappy Feet
- Sneaker Junkie
- Sneaker Mania
- Sole Patch
- Sole Provider
- Sole Queen
- Soled Out Shoes
- Solemate
- Solemate Sandals
- Soleworthy
- Souls Shoe Depot
- Squeaker Sneakers
- Starlight Footwear
- State Footwear
- Step Into Their Shoes
- Superior Shoes
- Sweet Feet
- That Shoe Store & More
- The Foot Spot
- The Shoe Shop
- Top Shoes
- Untied Shoes
- Up Stride
- VA Shoes
- Vibes Footwear
- Walk N Style Shoes
- Walking Co
- Walking Company
- Wigley Feet
- Work Shoes Plus
Is Your Shoe Store Name Available?
At this point, you should have several top considerations to choose from. And the best way to narrow it down further is to check each one for availability.
This step is helpful because using a name that someone else is using could be very costly, time-consuming to rebrand your business, and possibly embarrassing. There are several places to look to check whether a name is available to use, so let’s walk through each one.
Can the business name be registered in your state?
If you plan to use a specific business name, you may be required by the state to verify it’s available to use.
Related: How to check business name availability in your state
Is your name already trademarked?
When searching for a name for your new business, you should check that your new name isn’t trademarked by someone else. If it is, you may not be allowed to use it legally.
Thankfully, the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) makes trademark searching a breeze through their Trademark Database.
A name isn’t necessarily available if it doesn’t appear in this search. Every business has some limited protection through a common law trademark. This means another business can’t open up down the street with the same name, as this creates confusion for customers. Also, check local competitors by doing a Google search and looking through the Yellow Pages.
If your name is available and you want to protect it from being used by anyone else, you can register it with the USPTO.
Related: How to check for a trademark
Hopefully, you now have some good name ideas for your shoe store. Once you have narrowed this list to just a few and researched that they are all available, start asking friends, family, and potential customers their thoughts to get feedback, and then pick your perfect shoe store name!
