Of all of the big decisions that go into creating a brand, naming a business or a product is the one that inspires the most anxiety. After all, your brand name is closely tied to your own identity. If your business succeeds, for the rest of your life you could be known as the founder of Blackberry… or the founder of S&M Auto Repair (an actual business from a town I used to live in. I don’t want to know what they did with the chains). Not to mention that it’s the ultimate first impression — people will want to check out a brand with a great name, and probably bypass a business with an off-putting moniker

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So it’s no wonder that people sometimes overthink the naming process and get hung up on every possible thing that could go wrong. It’s sort of like when expecting parents say “We could name him Charles… but then people might call him Chucky, and I hate that name.” That’s how businesses get names like Dynamic Solutions, or Vertical Logistic Systems, Inc, or worse, a long string of random letters that are impossible to remember unless you work there. Sure, people are unlikely to make fun of your name. Because they can’t remember it.

The fact is, most of the most boring, uninspiring decisions ever made come from trying to come up with something that “isn’t terrible.” So I always tell people trying to name a business, “Write down a bunch of terrible names.” Just start writing down whatever’s at the top of your head, even if it seems really dumb, like “Dave’s Coffeepalooza” or “The IT Shack.” The only rule in this exercise is that if you think of a name, you have to write it down. Even if it’s dumb. Even if it has curse words in it. Hey, I never said you had to actually show this list to anybody! Or, for that matter, use any of the names you come up with.

The idea is that as you go, you’ll notice what you like… even about names you don’t like. “Dave’s Coffeepalooza” isn’t the message you want to send with your gourmet coffee importing business, but you like that it has your name in it. “The IT Shack” isn’t very descriptive of your tech consultancy, but you like that it sounds informal and approachable. “Vertical Logistic Systems”… well, we can’t all be winners.

After you’ve thought of as many as you can, put down the list and go do something fun, like going swimming with your kids, or something productive, like answering your emails. When you come back to it, you’ll probably find at least one name that isn’t really that awful and is, in fact, pretty good. Or you won’t, in which case you can try again, or you can take the list to someone else — like a colleague, or a branding professional like us — and be able to say something like “I want a name that sounds high-end but isn’t too pretentious” instead of just “I want a name that isn’t completely stupid.”

See? You’re more creative than you thought already!