You need a name, you need it today, and every article you’ve opened so far has given you four hundred words about “reflecting your authentic voice” and then twelve examples. Here are the names first. Advice after.
Take what you like, swap the words for your own, and treat the lists as patterns rather than a menu — the structure of a name is usually more useful than the name itself.
Table of Contents
- 1 Using your own name
- 2 Niche-descriptive names
- 3 Abstract and brandable names
- 4 Wordplay and puns
- 5 Two-word combinations
- 6 Question and phrase names
- 7 Location-based names
- 8 Short and punchy
- 9 Newsletter-style names
- 10 Picking one
- 11 Checking domain and handle availability
- 12 Naming mistakes that cost you later
- 13 How the name affects branded search
- 14 FAQ
Using your own name
The most durable option and the one most people talk themselves out of. Your name never becomes wrong. You can change topics entirely, start a business, write a book, take a completely different career turn, and the name still fits. Nearly every blog that turned into a career used the writer’s name or something very close to it.
The main downside is that it tells a first-time visitor nothing about the subject. You solve that with a tagline, not a different domain.
Straight name: Jamie Whitfield · Priya Raman · Marcus Cole · Elena Voss · Dev Patel Writes · Noor Hassan · Theo Brandt · Ava Lindqvist · Samir Qureshi · Rowan Ellis
Name plus a role or subject: Anna Reads · Cook With Kiran · Ben Builds · Notes From Yusuf · Ruth Runs · The Amina Files · Field Notes by Kai · Leo on Design · Writing With Dara · Iris Makes Things
Name plus a common suffix: Whitfield & Co · The Raman Report · Cole Collective · Voss Journal · Hassan Weekly · Brandt Studio · Ellis & Ink · The Patel Papers · Lindqvist Letters · Qureshi Notes
Initials and short forms: JW Notes · The MC Journal · RE Writes · AV Studio · Three Letters Loud · KR Daily · The TB Log
Two practical points. If your name is commonly misspelled, use the version people will actually type, or accept that you’ll be spelling it out forever. And if your name is already taken as a .com by someone with the same name, adding a single word (“writes,” “studio,” “notes”) is a better fix than reaching for a worse extension.
Niche-descriptive names
These say what the blog is about immediately. Best when you’re confident about the subject and want search and social to work in your favor from day one. The tradeoff is that they age badly if you pivot — a name with “budget” in it becomes awkward when your content is about investing.
Food and cooking: The Weeknight Kitchen · Salt & Season · Small Batch Kitchen · The Slow Simmer · Pantry First · Two Pots · The Bread Corner · Everyday Feast · Kitchen Margin · The Butter Note
Travel: Slow Roads Ahead · The Second Passport · Off the Main Line · Rooms and Routes · The Long Way Round · Carry-On Only · Postcards & Pins · The Detour Diary · North of Nowhere · One Way Ticket Club
Fitness and health: Strong By Default · The Recovery Log · Reps and Reasons · Slow Miles · The Morning Set · Barbell Notes · Rest Day Reading · Move Often · The Fitness Margin · Training Age
Personal finance: The Sensible Ledger · Money Without Panic · The Compound Note · Spend Less Loudly · Real Numbers Only · The Budget Room · Quiet Wealth · Ledger and Line · Paycheck Notes · The Long Position
Parenting and family: The Loud House Diary · Small People Big Feelings · Parenting Out Loud · The Sticky Years · Raising Rowan · Bedtime & Beyond · The Family Margin · Snack Adjacent · Half Past Chaos · Growing Sideways
Tech and making: Build Log · The Debug Diary · Ship It Slowly · Terminal Notes · The Side Project Shelf · Compile & Commit · Half-Built Things · The Repo Room · Tabs Open · Push to Main
Writing and creativity: Draft Two · The Blank Page Club · Words in Progress · Margin Notes · The Second Draft · Ink and Interval · Writing Between Things · The Long Sentence · Rough Cut · Paper Trail
Lifestyle and personal essays: The Ordinary Hours · Small Good Things · Middle of the Week · The Quiet List · Living Adjacent · Notes to Nobody · The Slow Part · Everyday Evidence · This and Then · Later Thoughts
Abstract and brandable names
Names that mean nothing on their own and become meaningful because of what you put behind them. They’re the most flexible option and the hardest to get right — an abstract name only works if it’s easy to say, easy to spell, and pleasant to hear.
The advantage is real: an abstract name never limits your topic and is far more likely to be available as a clean .com.
Single invented or repurposed words: Verrin ·Olwen · Kessa · Marlowe & Co · Nyra · Halden · Sorrel · Bramble · Aviro · Lumen Note · Thistle · Corvid · Wren House · Fenwick · Alder & Ash · Meridian Notes · Junip · Solace Row · Nimbus Notes · Perrin
Object and place words used as brands: The Lantern · Harborline · Northwind · Copper Row · Field & Ferry · The Attic Room · Blue Hour · Grainhouse · The Common · Longshore · Signal Fire · Tidewater · Stonecrop · The Anchorage
Two abstract words together: Salt and Signal · Paper Lantern · Quiet Engine · Amber Notice · Second Sun · Loose Compass · Iron Feather · Slow Tide · Open Ledger · Bright Margin
If you go abstract, say the name out loud to someone and ask them to spell it. If they can’t, it’s the wrong name — you will be spelling it on every podcast, every introduction, every time someone asks for your site.
Wordplay and puns
High memorability, and they signal personality before anyone reads a word. The risk is that a pun which delights you in week one can feel restrictive by year three, and puns rarely translate well if your audience isn’t all native English speakers.
Use them when your writing is genuinely funny. If your blog is earnest, a pun name creates a mismatch readers notice immediately.
Food: Well Seasoned Opinions · Loafing Around · A Whisk and a Prayer · Grain of Salt · Stirring the Pot · The Yeast I Could Do · Crumb Together Now · Souper Regular · Butter Late Than Never
Fitness: Squat Goals · Curl Up and Dye Trying · Running on Empty · Weights and Measures · Bench Warmer · Sore Subject · Rep Sheet
Travel: Planes and Simple · Wander Lust and Found · Passport Control Issues · Baggage Included · Jet Legs · Map Quest Complete
Writing and tech: Sentence Fragments · Comma Sense · Draft Dodger · Stack Overthinking · Null and Void Where Prohibited · Cache Money · Merge Conflict · Ctrl Alt Delight
General: Slightly Off Topic · Reasonable Doubt Club · Mildly Informed · Loosely Related · Terms and Conditions Apply · Second Opinion Only · Under Consideration
Two-word combinations
The most reliable formula in the list, and the one that produces the most usable available domains. Pick one word from a concrete column and one from an abstract column. Most good blog names in the wild are exactly this.
Concrete words that work: salt, iron, paper, glass, copper, north, river, field, stone, ember, thread, harbor, kettle, lantern, gravel, birch, anchor, quill, cedar, tide
Abstract words that work: notes, margin, method, theory, habit, signal, current, index, register, orbit, echo, draft, lens, mode, appetite, pattern, archive, ledger, column, dispatch
Combinations to steal or rebuild: Iron Habit · Paper Method · North Register · Salt Archive · River Index · Field Theory · Copper Dispatch · Stone Column · Ember Notes · Thread Count · Harbor Lens · Kettle Logic · Gravel Road Notes · Birch and Bone · Anchor Point · Quill and Column · Cedar Draft · Tide Table · Glass Margin · Signal Habit
Swap either half and you have another hundred. This is why the pattern matters more than the specific name.
Question and phrase names
Conversational, and they work unusually well for newsletters and for how people search now — question-shaped phrasing matches question-shaped queries.
But Do You Though · What I Learned Late · How Is This Going · Now What Weekly · Should I Though · Turns Out · So It Goes · Here’s the Thing · One More Thing · Anyway Here’s · Long Story Short · While I Was Thinking · Come to Think of It · If You’re Curious
Location-based names
Strong for local audiences, food, travel, and anything tied to a place. Only use one if you’re genuinely committed to the location, because moving makes the name a lie.
Brooklyn Batch · The Austin Table · Pacific Standard Notes · Midwest Margin · Lakeside Ledger · The Portland Draft · Third Coast Kitchen · Valley Habit · Gulf Road Diary · High Desert Notes · Northside Weekly · The Harbor District
Short and punchy
Under nine characters. Hard to find available, worth the effort when you do — short names are easier to say, easier to type, and dramatically better on social.
Dwell · Batch · Onward · Nook · Loft · Grit · Verge · Aloft · Notion Free · Hush · Kindle Point · Brisk · Plume · Kiln · Rove · Tally · Vessel · Woven · Anvil · Drift
Newsletter-style names
If there’s any chance you’ll run an email list alongside the blog — and there should be — a name that works as a newsletter title is worth more than one that only works as a website.
The Tuesday Note · Sunday Long Read · The Short List · Five Things Friday · The Weekly Margin · Dispatch No. 1 · The Reading Room · Slow Mail · The Monthly Round · Open Tabs · Loose Ends · The Standing Order
Picking one
You now have too many options, which is the actual problem. Here’s how to cut it down.
Shortlist five, not twenty. Anything past five is you avoiding a decision. Pick the five you’d be comfortable saying out loud to a stranger.
Say each one in a sentence. “I write a blog called ___.” “You can find me at ___ dot com.” If any of them makes you wince or requires an explanation, cut it.
Have someone else spell it. Text your shortlist to two people and ask them to type back the domain they’d guess. If they get it wrong, so will your readers.
Check that it doesn’t lock you in. Write down three topics you might cover in five years that you don’t cover now. Does the name still work? A name built around one narrow subject is a decision you’ll have to undo later, and undoing it costs you every link and every ranking you built.
Then check availability before you get attached. Falling in love with a taken name wastes a day.
Checking domain and handle availability
Do this for the whole shortlist at once, and check all platforms together — a name is only useful if you can hold it consistently.
Domain checking:
- Namecheap and Porkbun — straightforward search, honest pricing, no aggressive upsells at checkout. Porkbun tends to be cheapest on renewals, which is where registrars usually make their money.
- Cloudflare Registrar — sells domains at wholesale cost with no markup. Requires using Cloudflare for DNS. The cheapest long-term option if you’re comfortable with that.
- Instant Domain Search — fast bulk checking across many extensions at once, useful for running a whole shortlist quickly.
- ICANN Lookup — the official WHOIS. Use it to see whether a taken domain is actually in use or just parked, and when it expires.
Social handle checking:
- Namechk and KnowEm — check one name across dozens of platforms simultaneously. Both have false positives, so confirm anything important manually.
- Check manually anyway on the platforms you’ll actually use. Searching the handle directly on Instagram, YouTube, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Substack takes four minutes and is more reliable than any bulk tool.
Extension advice: Get the .com if you possibly can. Not because other extensions don’t work — plenty of successful sites run on .co, .io, .blog, and country domains — but because people type .com by reflex, and if someone else holds your .com you will permanently leak traffic to them. If the exact .com is gone, change the name before you change the extension.
Avoid: hyphenated versions of a taken domain, and adding “the” or “my” to get around an existing owner. Both send visitors to the other site.
Trademark check: search the USPTO trademark database for your shortlist, free, before buying anything. You’re checking whether an existing mark covers a similar name in a similar category. This takes ten minutes and prevents the one naming mistake that can actually force you to start over.
Naming mistakes that cost you later
Each of these is common, and each one is expensive specifically because renaming a site means losing accumulated search equity, redirecting everything, and re-teaching your audience.
Names people can’t spell after hearing them. The test is simple: say it once, aloud, and have someone write it down. Creative spellings (“Kwik,” “Xpress,” “Blogg”), silent letters, and words with two accepted spellings all fail this. Every failure is a reader who couldn’t find you.
Hyphens. They don’t help SEO and they hurt everything else. Nobody says “hyphen” out loud, so a hyphenated name is unspeakable, and the non-hyphenated version — usually owned by someone else — takes the traffic.
Numbers. Same problem, plus ambiguity: is it “5” or “five”? You’ll own one and lose visitors to the other.
Boxing yourself into one niche. The most common regret by a wide margin. “BudgetMealsFor2” is precise and useless the moment you want to write about anything else. Interests shift over years, and a name that describes exactly what you do today becomes a cage. Broader is safer.
Boxing yourself into an age or life stage. “Twentysomething Notes,” “New Mom Diaries,” “Broke Grad Life” — all of these expire on a schedule.
Names too close to an established brand. Not just legal risk. Anyone searching for you will find them, and you’ll be permanently outranked for your own name.
Very long names. Above roughly 20 characters, a domain gets typed wrong, truncated in search results, and awkward on business cards. Two or three short words is the sweet spot.
Something that reads badly as one string. Domains have no spaces. Read your name as an unbroken lowercase string before you buy it — this is a well-documented category of mistake and it’s easy to avoid by simply looking.
Following a trend. Naming conventions date. A name that sounds current now will sound like a specific year later, and the whole point of a personal blog name is that it should still work in a decade.
How the name affects branded search
Once your blog gets any traction, a meaningful share of your traffic comes from people searching your name directly. This is the highest-quality traffic you get — they already know who you are and they convert far better than anyone arriving from a general query. Your name’s job is to make that search work.
Searchable means distinctive. If your blog is called “Good Life” you will never rank for it, because millions of pages contain that phrase in a general sense. If it’s called “Grainhouse” you’ll own the query within weeks. Distinctiveness beats descriptiveness for branded search, every time.
Spellable means findable. People search what they heard. If they misspell it, they get someone else or nothing.
Consistency across platforms compounds. Same name on the site, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and your newsletter means every mention anywhere reinforces the same entity. Search engines and AI systems both build a picture of who you are from repeated, consistent references. Splitting your identity across three different handles dilutes that badly.
Then help the engines confirm it. Once you’ve picked, set up an About page that clearly states who you are and what the site is, add Person and WebSite schema, keep your name consistent everywhere you’re mentioned, and make sure the name appears in your title tags in a stable format. That’s what turns a name into a recognized entity rather than a string of characters.
For more on how search engines and AI systems build an understanding of a brand, see semantic SEO and AI search optimization.
Track it. Once the blog is live, watch branded queries in Google Search Console. Growth in searches for your blog name is the single cleanest measure of whether you’re building an audience rather than just catching traffic. If people are searching your name, you have a brand. If they’re only finding you through topic queries, you have a page that ranks.
FAQ
What makes a good personal blog name? A good personal blog name is easy to say, easy to spell after hearing it once, short enough to type without error, distinctive enough to rank for, and broad enough that it still fits if your topics change. Avoid hyphens, numbers, and any word that ties the name to a single narrow subject or a temporary life stage.
Should I use my own name for my blog? Use your name if there’s any chance your topics will change, if you want the blog to support a career or business, or if you’re building a personal brand. It never becomes outdated. Use a descriptive or brandable name instead if you’re committed to one subject long-term or if you may want to sell the site later.
How do I check if a blog name is available? Check the domain on Namecheap, Porkbun, or Instant Domain Search, then check social handles on Namechk or KnowEm and confirm manually on Instagram, YouTube, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Search the USPTO trademark database for conflicts. Do all of this before buying anything.
Does my blog name affect SEO? Indirectly and significantly. A distinctive name is easy to rank for in branded search, which is the highest-converting traffic you’ll get. Exact-match keywords in the domain carry little ranking weight on their own. Consistency of the name across your site and social profiles matters more, because it helps search engines and AI systems recognize you as a single entity.
Should I put a keyword in my blog domain? Only if the keyword describes something you’ll still be writing about in five years. Keywords in domains provide minimal direct ranking benefit, and the cost of a name that no longer fits your content is high — renaming means redirects, lost equity, and re-teaching your audience.
Is a .com necessary for a blog? Not necessary, but strongly preferred. People type .com by default, so if someone else owns the .com of your name you’ll permanently send them traffic. If the .com is unavailable, changing the name is usually a better move than switching to a different extension.
Can I change my blog name later? Yes, but it costs you. You’ll need 301 redirects from every old URL, and you’ll typically lose some search rankings temporarily while search engines process the move. You’ll also need to rebuild recognition with your existing audience. It’s doable, but it’s worth spending an extra day on the name now.
How long should a blog name be? Two or three short words, ideally under 20 characters as a domain. Shorter names are typed correctly more often, display fully in search results, and are easier to say aloud. One-word names are the strongest option when you can find one available.
What blog names should I avoid? Avoid hyphens, numbers, creative misspellings, names that lock you into one niche or age group, names close to an established brand, anything over about 20 characters, and trend-based names that will date. Also read the name as one unbroken lowercase string before buying — some word combinations read badly without spaces.
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