How To Brainstorm Food Blog Name Ideas You’ll Love

Food Blog Name Ideas When starting a food blog, Step 1 is going to be coming up with name ideas. This can be a tough process, because you want a name that is meaningful, unique, and stands out.

Why a Blog Name is Important

A great name can get peoples’ imaginations going even before they visit your site. Take this site’s name as an example: which one sounds like a more interesting site to visit “Blog Set-Up” or “Hatch and Scribe”.

Your blog name plays an important role. It is the first thing people see, and it can say a lot about you and your blog. Below I will go over simple steps to help you come up with a name that you’ll love for your food blog.

If You Get Stuck: Then check out my blogging course #BloggerLife and we can work together to launch your food blog.

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How Did I Come Up With the Name ‘Hatch and Scribe’?

Let’s start by going through the process I used to come up with the name for my site.

The topic or mission behind this site is to help people start a blog of their own. With that in mind I started brainstorming words that fit into this thinking:

Helping people build their site
Helping people construct their site

I thought about other things that get built/constructed, like:

Clothing: Tailor
Food: Chef, Brew
Origami: Cut and Fold

What are some words that describe the digital world of blogs?

Digital
Cyber
Online

Words like Tailor and Chef can be mashed up with words that describe the digital world of blogs:

Digital Tailor / Cyber Chef

I then thought about how a blog is a person’s own little space on the Internet:

My Island / Home of Me / Through the Front Door

When I really thought about it, I wanted a name about building a blog from scratch, because it is like giving birth to something new. So I went to dictionary.com and used the thesaurus to come up with some unique words. I searched for “make” and this is what came up:

Conduct / Construct / Fashion / Spawn / Hatch

I started asking myself “why?”. Why do I want to help people start their own blogs. This site is not just about setting up a blog: it is also about helping people get started writing online. So I also used the thesaurus to search for words relating to “write” and got:

Author / Compose / Record / Scribe / Sign

After getting a ton of ideas, I started looking for words and combinations that work well together and can be told in a visual way. I chose Hatch and Scribe 1) because it sounded unique and 2) because I can see the kind of header/logo/brand I could create with a name like that (using things like an egg shell, a feather pen, ink, or a little duckling). I look for names that can be told visually because it makes branding the site much easier (which I’ll speak more about later).

Creative Exercises for Coming up with Your Own Blog Names

There are two rules that you need to follow when you are brainstorming names for your food blog: 1) come up with as many ideas as possible, and 2) don’t settle on the first ideas you come up with. When I worked in advertising we use to have brainstorming ‘rounds’. Take this site as an example: round 1 would be ideas like “construct” and “build” – the obvious and generic ideas. The goal was to get those obvious ideas out of the way. You then come back and start thinking deeper: “tailor” “cut and fold”.

After you’ve brainstormed your first bunch of ideas, let them sit for a while. Do something you enjoy for a while. Then come back for round 2 of brainstorming, then rest, then round 3 of brainstorming..

Exercise 1 – Keep Asking Why: When you keep asking why, you get to the root of what your site is really about. For me it was:

This site is about helping you build a blog (word ideas: construct, build, craft, hatch, cut and fold)

Why?

So you can have your own space online (word ideas: island, my world, front door)

Why?

So you can write about your own views/opinions or share your projects (word ideas: scribe, author, signature, show and tell, fair, flea market, workshop)

Every time you come up with answers to “why”, you’ll find new words and blog name ideas.

So lets apply this exercise to a food blog. Let’s say I loved baking, especially when it comes to cupcakes. I love cupcakes… (word ideas: cupcakes, baking, the oven)

Why do I love cupcakes? What it is about cupcakes that I love?

Is it because they are the perfect breakfast food.. (word ideas: sunrise, morning, 9am, milk man. Typing morning into the thesaurus I got: rooster, AM, dawn, day break, sun up).

Blog Name Ideas: Sunrise Oven, Morning Baker, Rooster Cupcakes.

Maybe I love cupcakes because they are small slices of comfort food, small pieces of joy.. (word ideas: little, mini, teeny, bitsy, joy, glee),

Blog Name Ideas: Little Joys, Bitsy Glee, The Mini Oven.

Or maybe I love cupcakes because I can be creative when decorating them (word ideas: decorator, glam, decor, architect, artist, painter, stylist)

Blog Name Ideas: Cupcake Stylist, The Baker Architect, Cake Decor.

[Important] Remember, it is always good to get specific and focused with your new blog. A lot of people I know want to write about so much – baking, fitness, life. But you want to be known for something. It will give your blog personality, and make it memorable – which will mean it will build an audience faster.

Just because you have a blog about the love of breakfast cupcakes does not mean you can’t write about fitness, relationships, or home organisation. But if you do want to write about these topics, I’d recommend tailoring them to the overall theme of your blog. So when you have a blog about morning cupcakes, then maybe the fitness posts need to be about “morning fitness routines”, or a productivity post would be about “productivity tips for starting the day out write”. See how it is all tied together – making the blog more memorable.

Exercise 2 – Different Directions: Try and look at your blog from different directions or points of view. For Hatch and Scribe, I went from building and construction ideas to name ideas based around your own personal space online (“my island”, “front door”). Another direction was based on people who build or make things like a chef, an Origami artist, or a tailor.

One way to think of different directions and naming ideas is to keep asking questions (who, what, where, when, how, why). Let’s say you are starting a food blog, some questions to ask would be:

Who else makes things? Kitchen Musician, Food Mechanic, Dinner Plate Sculptor
What is the opposite of food/eating? Hungry Mommy, Just Ingredients
What do I want my food site to really be about?
- Confidence in the kitchen (My Fairy Godmother, Daring Foodie, My Kitchen Cape)
- Ingredient combinations (Piece by Piece, Kitchen Melody, Food Palette)
- Or is it about individual food styles (Food Rebels, Jessica’s Fusion)

Exercise 3 – Using The Thesaurus: Head on over to the thesaurus. Think up of general words that describe what you want your blog to be about. For a food blog, think up of general words like “ingredients”, “kitchen”, and “food”, and type these words into the thesaurus and see if any unique and catchy ideas pop up. Also type in specific words based on the kind of food blog you want to start: “baking” “noodles” “bowl” “icing” “fusion” “fire”.

Also think of what parts of the kitchen can be turned into a unique name – “The Red Cooker”, “Wok Workshop”, “Spice Rack Tales”, “Mary’s Chopping Board”.

Exercise 4 – Make it Personal: A great way of coming up with a blog name is to make it personal – like the reason why you are blogging, or something unique about your story. Some examples include:

Four Generations One Roof
Ugly Duckling House

Exercise 5 – Ask Me: I am always happy to lend a hand in coming up with ideas for your blog name. Just write what kind of blog you want to start and a little about yourself on the contact page and I’ll get back to you.

PART II: Rules and Criteria for Selecting Your Final Blog Name

You’ll want to keep your name as short as possible. This will help your name be catchy and memorable. Hatch and Scribe is a good length. Four Generations One Roof is a long name, but it is simple and memorable.
Don’t use a blog name that you have to spell out to people. Hatch and Scribe vs. Hatch n Scribez, or Blog 2 Gre8.
Use a name that is brandable. This means avoiding generic names like Blog Maker, Home Design, KitchenChef, MyCooker, RecipesForMe. Your name should have a story behind it OR a story you can build. Use a name that can be easily visualised. ‘Sunrise Oven’ can have a logo of a sunrise behind an oven dial, or behind a cupcake. ‘My Kitchen Cape’ can have a logo of a chef with a cape, or a chef with a big J on his chest (for Jacob, that’s me).
Choose a name that you love, and keep coming up with ideas until you find one that feels right.
You want to have your blog as a .com. It looks professional, it is brandable, and it is a global domain. It does take a bit of patience and can be disappointing to find out that the name is already taken – but this takes us to the next step.

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Checking if Your Blog Name is Available (What to Do if it is Not)

This is how I do it: Only after I have a brainstormed a whole bunch of name ideas do I start checking if they are available. Don’t start checking right after you’ve come up with your first name – remember you need to get a lot of ideas to get to the good ones. Checking each time will hurt your brainstorming flow.

I go to www.name.com to check if the domain name I want is available. Remember you want the .com.

What to do if the name is not available:

Go back and come up with more ideas.
If your name is short, see if you can add on another word. ‘Hatch’ would have been a great name for this site, but I already knew that wouldn’t be possible. So I looked for another word to combine it with: Hatch and Scribe.

Some examples and suggestions for add-ons for “Kitchen Musician” would be: “Kitchen Musician Mandy” or “Fusion Kitchen Musician”.

Or how about changing the name slightly. Instead of using “Kitchen Musician”, some other ideas include “Kitchen Melody”, “Kitchen Busker”, “Kitchen Jazz”, or “Kitchen Jamming”.

Almost There – The Next Step

For me, coming up with a name you love and checking to see if it available is the hardest part when starting a food blog. The next step is a lot easier.

Once you have come up with a blog name that you love and have checked that it is available, the next step is to register the domain name and set up your blog – let’s get to it: Setting Up Your Food Website in 11 Minutes