Hair Salon Names

So we can't help you to actually name your salon, since the name will be so personal to you. But this hub will help you find some inspiration, so that the naming process becomes easier.

The name for your salon isn't just something you should think up in two seconds and then be done with it. Although that can happen if you have a really inspired idea, it's much better to sit down and really think hard about the name you pick. Naming your salon is important so the more time spent on it the better.

Your name does something integral to your business - it communicates who your are, and most importantly what your company stands for. Or at least it should. The problem is that names can often communicate the wrong things to customers. The name should be meaningful to customers, since it acts as a hook in their minds upon which they can hang their understanding of your business.

So how do you go about getting a name? Well there are two options. You can either hire a professional naming firm from between a couple of thousand up to forty thousand. Or you could name it yourself. Most businesses are named themselves. The larger your business becomes then more critical professional naming becomes, because it could otherwise mean a lot of money flying out the door.

Very popular recently are salon names that use wordplay to allude to multiple things at once. Such names actively engage the client, or potential client, by making them think. Consequently they have a much higher chance of remembering you. So does it work? Of course, I'll never ever ever in my life be able to forgot "Jack the Clipper" even though his business is long gone.

So if you want a witty punny name, but you're not sure where to start, you can look through the possibilities. They will spark your imagination, and get your creativity focused on the task.

There's a group pool of photos of interestingly named salons you can use for inspiration over on flicker.

Fun names are informal and add a sense of enjoyment and fun to your business. The clients you'll attract are the more light-hearted type, who appreciate such humor. Better yet, you get to have fun when thinking up the name. Fun names play with words and ideas, combining them into things you wouldn't expect. Examples include the above mentioned legendary Jack the Clipper, as well as Headonizm, Curl up and Dye, among a multitude of others. These are names that your customers will appreciate and will hopefully brighten up their day.

Some names are over used, and will not stand out from all the other thousands of hair salons similarly named. Think of all the salons that use hair in the name, or all the salons that use shear in the title. There are very good reasons not to choose something that sounds too similar to what everyone else has. An article in associated content looks into this type of name in depth and comes up with the following findings?

1. Shear Perfection. According to YellowPages.com, there are 389 salons nationwide that go by this name. Equally detestable are other salons which use "shear" in their titles, such as Shear Expressions (128), Shear Magic (475), or Shear Creations (132). If you must patronize a salon with the word "shear" in the title, at least opt for something a little more creative, like "From Shear to Eternity" or "Shears Lookin' At You, Kid."

See the original piece for more no-nos:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1579207/worst_names_for_hair_salons.html

At some point you're going to have to put some notes down on paper. There are a few different brainstorming techniques that can help. Here are some of them.

• Mind mapping - This is where you start with a central thing, "Your salon" in a bubble in the center, and you start to map outwards, noting ideas as they come to you. You draw branches out the way and have your words on top of those branches. You have 1 word per branch and keep expanding more branches as your ideas branch off.
  
• Brainstorming - People get mind mapping and brainstorming. You also start with the central idea in a bubble e.g. "My Salon" and then write down ideas around the edges, stick a bubble around them and connect them up. Very different because mind mapping allows every word to branch off into more words, whereas brainstorming is a branching of ideas.
• List - A list is the simplest form of brainstorming and can still help, you just keep listing ideas until you have some specific names that you like.