Ep. 85 The Art (& Science) of Choosing A Great Business Name w/ Katie Pannell

Did you know you can hire someone to help you name things in your business? Your business name, your offers, your freebies, your digital products? I didn't know that either. It blew my mind when I learned that naming is a whole industry.

That's why I was so excited to sit down with Katie Pannell, naming expert and founder of 26 and then some, where big names are built letter by letter. Katie has named brands, bands, beauty lines, and baby products. She also created Name-O-Matic, an AI naming tool with actual taste, designed for entrepreneurs still waiting for genius to strike in the shower.

In this conversation, we got into the difference between personal names and business names, why your offer names might be doing you more harm than good, and how naming and brand strategy are more connected than most people realize.

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How Katie Landed on Naming as Her Niche

Katie started as a copywriter, first in a marketing agency and then on her own. For nine years she wrote copy for clients, and somewhere along the way people started noticing something: her names were different. Not just for businesses, but for offers, freebies, everything. Her copywriting clients started asking if she'd take a look at their offer names while she was working on their sales pages.

The more she leaned into it, the more she realized naming was massively underserved. The only competitors are giant branding agencies charging five figures for the same work. So she niched all the way down from copywriting into naming, which is honestly one of the cleanest and most logical pivots I've heard.

Your Name vs. a Business Name: What You Should Actually Know

This is one of the most common questions I see come up online, and it's one I've lived personally. I started out as Morgan Stapp Design (my maiden name), got married, and eventually transitioned to Spectrum Co. My reasoning was that I still wanted it to feel personal since people are hiring me, but I also wanted room to grow so it didn't have to be just me forever.

That was a fine decision. But had I known what I know now, I might have thought it through differently.

Katie is clear that using your personal name isn't wrong. She did it. I did it. Most people do. But there are a few things worth thinking through before you commit.

Scalability. When someone else is working in your business, are they comfortable signing emails as "Team Katie" or on behalf of your business name? The more your business name is tied to your personal name, the trickier that gets.

Sellability. If there's any chance you might want to sell your business one day, a name that isn't tied to you personally is a much easier thing to transfer.

SEO. This is the one people don't think about. You might be competing for your own name with a lawyer, a doctor, a drag queen, or, in one example Katie shared, a contestant from a reality TV show. A friend of hers with the same name as a specific reality show participant actually hired people to write blog posts and reviews about her music just so search results would surface her, not the show. Not impossible to fix, but way easier to avoid.

And then there's the piece Katie calls separation of self and service. A lot of us are realizing we don't want to be constantly documented online. We want a business, not to be the business. Having a name that isn't your own creates a little bit of distance and some unofficial office hours for your personal life.

What Actually Makes a Name Good

When I first learned naming was a professional service, my first worry was that it would be entirely subjective. How do you build a repeatable process around something that's so personal?

Katie has figured it out. Before she ever presents names to a client, they establish criteria together based on messaging, positioning, and what the name needs to accomplish. Every name she presents comes with rationale. She's pitching each one, not just listing options.

Then comes the best part. After presenting, she turns off the screen share. No notes allowed. She sets a timer and asks: which names do you remember?

Because memorability is the whole point. If a name doesn't stick in the first five minutes, it's not going to stick anywhere else either.

After that, she has clients mock-introduce themselves using each name. "Hi, I'm Katie, founder of blank." She watches their faces for micro-expressions. A smile, a hesitation, an arched eyebrow. Those reactions tell her more than any questionnaire would.

It's remarkably smart. And it makes total sense coming from someone with a background in performing arts and improv. You're reading the room and thinking on your feet at the same time.

You're Labeling Things Isn’t The Same as Naming Them

Here's the thing that stuck with me most from this conversation. Most of us are not naming our offers. We're labeling them.

A "brand strategy session" is a label. A "guide," a "checklist," a "worksheet" — all labels. They describe the format or the category, but they say nothing about the experience, the result, or why you specifically are the person to deliver it.

When I started offering brand strategy as a standalone service, I called it exactly that: a brand strategy session. And Katie is right that it created friction. It sounded like something you had to grit through in order to get to the good stuff. I eventually renamed it the Standout Brand Strategy Session, which is better because it telegraphs the outcome. It could probably still be stronger, but the difference in how people respond to it has been noticeable.

When you give something a real name instead of a label, it does a few things. It signals that the thing is intentional and worth your attention. It gives people something to hold onto. It creates an experience before the experience even starts.

Katie's own offer names are a great example. She has a signature offer called Capital Letters (with tiers called IDK and TBD), a VIP day called Red Letter Day, and a name analysis called Letter Grades. Every single one of those connects back to her letters-and-alphabet brand theme, and each one gives you a sense of what you're getting without spelling it out. Red letter day is an existing idiom that already means something significant. Letter Grades immediately evokes a pass/fail evaluation. None of it has to be explained. It just clicks.

How to Start Brainstorming a Name

Katie gave a few starting points that I think are genuinely useful.

Start with what draws you. What themes, outcomes, or ideas are you naturally pulled toward? Think about results, differentiators, your client's inner dialogue, things that inspire you.

Consider whether there's a through line to your messaging. A beverage theme can work if there's an actual connection to what you do. A coffee-based offer suite where the link is just "I drink coffee" is a label with a costume, not a name with intention.

Think about where your business is going, not just where it is. This one matters more than people realize. Katie shared a client in the self-tanning space who didn't mention until the name presentation that they were thinking about launching swimwear one day. It changed everything. A name that's perfectly tailored to one niche can become a liability as soon as you try to expand.

Don't obsess over domains and spelling. Both are more flexible than you think.

And above all: make sure you can say it with conviction. If you're embarrassed by your own name, or you feel the need to defend it, it's time to find a different one. If you put it on a mug and smile, you're probably on the right track.

How Brand Strategy Affects Naming

One of the clearest takeaways from this conversation is how much the quality of a name depends on the clarity of the brand strategy behind it.

When clients come to Katie without having done brand strategy work, they're vague about their criteria. They struggle to make decisions. They can't clearly articulate what they want the name to accomplish.

When they come in with a solid brand strategy foundation, everything moves faster. They know their audience, their positioning, their tone. They can say "this doesn't sound like me" without being able to say exactly why, and that instinct is rooted in something real. The name drop doc that Katie creates for clients, her offboarding deliverable that helps them explain and roll out their new name with confidence, is essentially a bridge between the strategy work and the naming work.

The sequence that makes the most sense: do your brand strategy first, then name your business or offers, then build your visuals. Because your name can inform your visual direction in ways that make everything more cohesive. 26 and then some led naturally to letters, primary colors, ABCs. If the name came after the visuals, that through-line would have been a lot harder to achieve.

How to Roll Out a Name Change Without Losing People

If you're already operating under a name that doesn't quite fit, Katie's advice is not to just abandon ship overnight.

A name change isn't inherently bad PR. But people will fill in the blanks if you don't give them context, and they usually fill them in with something negative. Why is this company changing their name? Is something wrong?

Her process: notify your team and internal people first. Then tell your current clients before you make the announcement publicly, especially if the name might show up on their invoices or bank statements before they hear from you. Give people a sequence of information, not one blast email that half your list won't open. And ideally, give them something to be excited about. Katie launched 26 and then some with a 26-day Instagram countdown working backwards through the alphabet. The buildup made the name make sense in a way that no announcement email could have.

Where to Find Katie

Katie offers DIY resources including Name-O-Matic, her AI naming tool, and Analog Intelligence, a series of by-hand naming exercises. She also has done-for-you, done-with-you, and name decision support options. Everything lives at 26andthensome.com.

And if you want to get on her email list, she is largely bricked from social media by choice, so that's genuinely the best way to stay in the loop.

🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned In The Episode:

➡️ Subscribe to Katie's Newsletter
➡️ Visit Katie's Website
➡️ Follow Morgan on Instagram @spechtand.co
➡️ Book Your Stand Out Brand Strategy Session (use code SFBPOD for $100 off)
➡️ Book A Brand Chat

🎧 Listen to episode 85 of The Six Figure Brand Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube