There are more than 212,000 photography businesses in the United States alone. So, it’s no surprise settling that many people have a tough time coming up with a unique name when starting their own photography business.
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 good photography business names already taken? What is the best strategy for coming up with something fresh? And can you even use the names you find?
Related: How to start a photography business
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 the perfect business name and how to make sure your favorite choices are available to use.
Let’s dive in!
Tips for Choosing a Creative Photography Business Name
If you’re struggling to choose the perfect name for your photography business, one of the best things to do is just to 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
There are several types of services a photography business can offer, so it may be worth considering the services you plan to offer in the name. Maybe you want to focus on portraits or weddings or school portraits. Perhaps you’re considering offering other specialty services.
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
Most photography businesses are specific to a geographic service area. So, if that’s true for your business, consider adding a location-specific term to your photography company 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) search 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 photography business name is good, being too unique may not be so good.
Keep your business name as simple and easy to remember as possible so potential customers 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 with choosing a few of your favorite words from your master brainstorm list.
Then, you can Google “words that start with C” to come up with a name like Candid Clicks or Camera Crew 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
When brainstorming creative name ideas, industry-related words could also be a brand name for a logo. For instance, a photography business could use a camera or tripod image and focus the name around the image.
Related: How to create a logo for your business.
7. 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 last 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.
List of the Most Catchy Photography Business Names
Here is a list of photography business names from existing businesses that may help give you some creative ideas for a catchy business name. While many of these names may be available for you to use, be sure to check first to be sure they can be used.
Tips on how to check business name availability are after the list of names!
- 1005 Photography
- 11 Photo
- 1st Generation Photography
- A Step Beyond Imaging
- A Thing Called Love Photo
- A Wrinkle In Time Photography
- Above & Beyond Photography
- Adorned Photography
- Adventure Photography
- Affect Photographic
- All Things Beautiful Photo
- Always & Forever Photo
- Apex Product Photography
- Art & Images Photography
- Art Of Light Photography
- Artisan Photography
- Austin T Photography
- Autoshots Photography
- AZ Photography
- Baby Bee Photography
- Baby Steps Photography
- Backroads Photography
- Bang Images
- Behind The Lens Nature Photos
- Bella Pictures Wedding Photographer
- Bells & Whistles Photography
- Blue Bike Photography
- Blue Lite Photography
- Blue Stream Photography
- Brightside Photography Studio
- Candid Captures Photo
- Captured Instantly Photo
- Captured Moments By Brandi
- Creative Concepts Photo
- Creative Exposures
- Creative Photography
- Crystal River Photography
- Cust Impressions
- Dandy Photography
- Darling Memories Photo
- Dauphin Tales Photography
- Daydream Photography
- Dream Photography
- Dreamscape Photography
- Drone Solutions
- Eagles Eye Photography
- Elegant Wedding Photography
- Embellished Simplicity Photo
- Emerald Coast School Photo
- Every Moment Matters
- Family Photography
- Firebrand Photography
- Flawless Images
- Flitterflies Photography
- For The Moment Photography
- Forever Treasured Photography
- Foxy Silver Snapshots
- Glamour Shot
- Glow & Joy Photography
- Gold Border Photos
- Greenwood Photography
- Gulf South Photography
- Halfstop Photography
- Hart2hart Photography
- High Click Photography
- Holiday Photography
- Hooked Up Photography
- Imagine Photo Studio
- In A Flash Photography
- Jax Photographer
- Kamila’s Photography
- Keene Eye Photography
- Kevin’s Outdoor Photography
- Knight Visions Photography
- Lasting Impressions
- Lens Art Photography
- Love Photography
- Lucky Girl Photography
- Majestic Soul Photography
- Memories From A Photo
- Miami Lights Photography Corp
- Modern Moose Studios
- Moonloop Photography
- Mountain To Sea Photography
- My Corporate Photography
- Nature Coast Photo
- Once Upon A Time Fashion Photo
- One Big Happy Photo
- Paradise Photography
- Perfect Portrait
- Photo Shoots
- Photo Ready
- Photo Stories
- Photoday
- Photos Like This
- Pipas Imagery
- Pixel Perfect Photography
- Portraits By Ashley
- Pride Photography & Design
- Purple Pride Photography
- R&B Photo Works
- Rainbow River Photos
- Shutter Up Photo Studio
- Snap Captures
- Tammy Klein Professional Photographer
- The Capture Crew
- Unique Snaps
- Victory Images
- Vivid Memories
- Wild Image Photography
Is Your Photography Name Available to Use?
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 vital 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 a few of the more common ones.
Can the business name be registered in your state?
If you plan to register your photography business name as a corporation or LLC, each state requires a unique company name.
This makes it important to search the Secretary of State’s name database in the state you plan to register to ensure your name isn’t already in use.
In most states, sole proprietorships and partnerships are required to register a Doing Business As (DBA) or Assumed Name if they aren’t doing business under the owner’s full first and last name. A few states require them to use a unique name, while others will let you pick just about any name you choose.
Related: How to check business name availability in your state
Is your business name already trademarked?
When searching for a name for your new photography business, you need to make sure your new name isn’t trademarked by someone else. If it is, you may not be allowed to legally use it.
Thankfully the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) makes trademark searching a breeze through their Trademark Database.
If your name is available and you want to protect it from being used by anyone else, you can register your name with the USPTO.
Related: How to check for a trademark
Is a domain name available with your business name?
A domain name is your business’s digital address. With so many people researching online, it’s crucial to make sure your photography business name is also available as a domain name.
Website addresses aren’t as critical as the first two searches, but it’s still worth doing as a domain can cost as little as $10 to pick up. Typically, you want your domain name to be “yourbusinessname.com” without any numbers, dashes, etc.
You can easily search for a domain using NameCheap’s domain name search tool.
Hopefully, you now have some good name ideas for your photography business. Once you have this list narrowed down 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 photography business name!
