What should I name my baking business? 5 ideas to get started

It’s exciting when choosing a name for your business, but it can be daunting too. To settle on just one! With so many options. Here’s a quick guide to get your creativity flowing and your mind brainstorming; 5 ways of coming up with a name for your food business.

How to name your baking business

The Person

You are your business. Many people have found success in putting a lot of graft in building their own personal brand. This obviously requires a focus on you which you might not naturally enjoy, but if you’re willing to build a personal brand then you could name your baking business after yourself. 

Building a personal brand enables you to promote the things you enjoy doing, gives you a bit of flexibility in changing what your business does and creates an audience of people to showcase your venture to.

So there are kind of two ways you can go about this here, you can either name the business after yourself such as simply “Cathy Joy” or “Ben’s Bakes” for example, or build all your social profiles around yourself and then signpost to your business.

The Product

You can say what you do on the tin, if you like, the benefits of this method of naming your business, means customers know exactly what you do and that will help them make their mind up whether they would like to visit your website, your shop at all, and if they do, they are probably after the very thing you sell. 

You could call your business “Cathy’s Chocolate Tarts” for a mix of personal and product centric naming or “Bulk Buy Brownies” for example. 

The only thing is it could be too specific so if you’re not sure what your speciality will be, you could keep it general or just change it later on to fit your purpose.

The People

Think of your ideal customer, who is your target market, you can name your business something that will quickly resonate with your customers and make them feel included in what you are doing. 

Here are some examples: “Treats for Teachers”, “Cakes for Coders”, “Homemade British Bakes”, “Sailor’s Sweets”. I’m not saying you’ll just be selling to sailor’s here, but it already gives people associations and will attract a certain market to your product. Of course, you could niche down and only sell sweets to sailor’s if you live by the sea – a perfect seaside shop venture perhaps?

The Locality

This is a similar idea, naming based on your market, instead of a theme of a particular profession, you could just be called “Manchester Cakes” or “The Bristol Brownie Company”, then people associate you with the locality and that can be an excellent way to be relations and customers.

The Purpose

Moreover, you could choose a name that sums up your mission or your vision for your business.

Are you going to be the stand-out stamped fondant cookie business in your area? Or the letterbox occasion cakes company providing slices of a variety of cakes as gifts for people’s birthdays? 

Brand your company with your purpose, your main selling point – maybe it is you – an audience you’ve built up on your personal channels, or maybe it’s that fact you want to do wholesale only, or letterbox brownies only, or serve your local town and village from a shop or your house.

Other considerations for baking business names

So when naming your food venture, think about what you want your business to be and who you want to serve. This can help give you direction, ultimately pick a name that you like, that you can get behind, even if it’s your own name.

You’ll want to be able to promote your business to friends and family, as well as further afield. You’ll also want it to have clarity and be memorable so people can easily find you on Google or social media.

Check that your desired social media handles or domain names are available for it too, as having consistency across channels will be much easier for you and your customers to remember who you are.

Another thing you might need to check is that no one holds a trademark of the name you are intending to use, and it’s not the same as another baking business, especially if you are becoming an incorporated company with that name, but this can be simply be mitigated by using Companies House search. If you are just a sole trader, a simple search on Google or Facebook will bring up anyone with similar names.

Finally, remember it’s not the end of the world if you want to change in the future, it’s best to get started.

Some baking business name ideas to inspire you

If you are really struggling for inspiration perhaps you can use or merge some of these baking words together to come up with a catchy business name for your bakery.

• Cookie
• Box
• Delights
• Crumb
• Chocolate
• Confectionary
• Treats
• Sweets
• Crumble
• Sugar
• Cake
• Bread
• Iced
• Fondant
• Cocoa
• Biscuit
• Baker

How to use baking words to come up with a name

Merge words or combine them in a clever way such as using:

1. Alliteration (e.g. Cookie Crumble, Blondie Bakes)
2. Onomatopoeia (e.g. Swirls and Curls)
3. Rhyme (Rhoda’s Cakes & Bakes)
4. Literal (e.g. Chocolate Treats)

Once you have your name – you’ll need to put together a plan of your bakes and your brand.