Tips For Naming A Painting Business

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Last Updated on October 6, 2020

There are more than 246,000 painting companies in the United States alone. So, it’s no surprise settling on a unique name when starting a painting business is hard.

Picking the right name gives your target market an idea about your business, creates a good first impression, and helps you stand out from the competition.

Are all the good painting company names already taken? How do you come up with a creative name? And what about the legality of using a name?

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If you’re not sure how to answer those questions, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to learn my top tips for choosing the perfect business name and how to make sure your favorite choices are available across the board.

Let’s dive in!

Tips for Choosing the Perfect Painting Company Name

If you’re struggling to choose a company name for your painting company, one of the best things to do is start brainstorming. As you go through the tips outlined below, make a list of words, phrases, and terms associated with your business.

From there, you can narrow down the list and cross off ideas you don’t like.

Once you have several top considerations, we’ll walk through how to make sure you’re allowed to use them. This last step helps you narrow down your list even more so you can make a final decision.

1. Consider the Services You Plan to Offer

There are several kinds of businesses that a painting company can cater to, so it’s worth considering the services you plan to offer. Maybe you want to focus on residential painting or commercial painting of buildings, bridges, etc. Perhaps you’re considering offering other specialty services, like a mural painting business or concrete painting.

Add the different types of services you want to offer to your brainstorming list.

Remember to avoid anything limiting your business’s future growth if you decide to go in another direction down the road.

2. Location-Specific Terms

Most painting companies are specific to a geographic service area. So, if that’s true for your business, consider adding a location-specific term to your business name.

You can consider things like:

City nicknames
Neighborhoods
Regions or states
And descriptive terms

However, consider what happens if you expand outside your intended service area. Does the name become limiting? If so, it’s best to avoid it if you plan to expand or change directions later.

3. Avoid Business Names That Are Hard to Pronounce, Hear, or Spell

Despite the technological advances of voice search, assistants like Siri and Alexa struggle to understand slang and other confusing words.

This could limit how often your business shows up in voice (and text-based) search if your name is hard to spell, pronounce, or hear. Because of that, it’s important to avoid complicated words, industry jargon, and using numbers in place of letters. While having a unique painting company name is good, being too unique may not be so good.

Keep your business name as simple and easy to remember as possible so potential customers can easily find you.

4. Consider Alliterations and Rhyming Words

Alliterations and rhymes are catchy and easy to remember. Because of that, they make for great business names.

That said, it’s not always easy to come up with them. Start with choosing a few of your favorite words from your master brainstorm list.

Then, you can Google “words that start with P” to come up with a name like Paint Perfection or B for Brush Brothers or whatever letter you’re using to create an alliteration. Alternatively, you can search “words that rhyme with _____.”

It can be time-consuming, but it’s an excellent place to start.

And don’t forget to add any exciting finds to your brainstorm list while you’re at it. Try not to overthink the names you come up with during this stage. Just write them all down as some of the more interesting ones may spark better ideas later.

5. Steer Clear of Initials or Obscure Acronyms

Initials and unusual acronyms are hard to remember, so they typically don’t make great business names. They can also be challenging to pronounce and confusing for voice search as well.

Furthermore, there are 325 different two-letter combination possibilities in the English language. And the odds of your potential customers remembering the specific letters you chose are pretty small.

6. Imagery Words

Another consideration when brainstorming name ideas is whether there are industry-related words that could also lend themselves to be used in a logo. For instance, a painting company could use an image of a paintbrush or dripping paint and focus the name around the image. A solid image can really work well when added to business cards and marketing materials.

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7. Still Struggling? Try the Owner’s Name

If you’ve made it this far and are still struggling to find the best name, you can always consider using the business owner’s name. Many painting businesses will use the owner’s last name when coming up with the painting business name. Doing so works well if the owner also plans to be the face behind the business.

Something to keep in mind is that using the owner’s name as the business name can make it more challenging to sell the business in the future.

8. Look at the Names of Other Painting Businesses

Here is a list of business name ideas taken from existing painting companies that may help give you some creative ideas. While many of these names may be available for you to use, be sure to check first to be sure it can be used.

Tips on how to check business name availability are after the list of names!

360 Painting of San Diego
A & F Pro Painting
A Class Act Painting
A1 Premier Painting
A-1 Top Quality Painting
Aarons Precise Painting
Absolutely Anything Painting
Accu Painting Co
Ace Painting
Affordable Painting Service
All Aloha Painting
All-Pro Painting
All Seasons Pro Painting
All-Star Painting
Arizona Painting & Drywall
As You Like It Painting
Baca & Sons Painting
Barron Premium Painting
Bay Colors Refinishing
Beach City Painting
Beautify Houses Painting
Bell Painting
Best-One Painting
Best-N-The West Painting
Beyond Quality Painting
Big M Painting
Brighter View Painting
Budget Painting
Bulldog Paint Company
C T Decorative Finishes
Cal City Painting
Casey Commercial Painting Company
Chameleon Painting
City Painters
Clark Brothers Painting
Clean Cut Painters
Complete Spectrum Painting
Cousin’s Paint & Decor
Crystal Painting Co
Custom Painting
Cut-In Edge Painting
Dale Hector Painting
David’s Painting Service
Desert Cities Painting
Detailed Custom Painting
Detail-Pro Painting Co
Diamond Star Painting
Don’t Tread On Me Painting
D-Specialty Painting
Eagles Painting Co
Elite Custom Painting
Excellence Custom Painting
Exclusive Painting Service
Extra Care Custom Painting
Extreme Painting
Fine Finish Painting
First Class Painting
Five Star Painting Of Tucson
Flynn’s Painting & Refinishing
Foothill Painting & Drywall
Gold Eagle Painting
Grenpro Painting
Him & Her Painting
In-N-Out Pro-Painting
Italian Street Painting
Laguna Painting
Level 10 Painting
Liberty Painting
Lonestar Painting
Magic Paint Pros
Old Skool Painting
People First Painting
Picture Perfect Painting
Precision Paint & Polish
Robert Criswell Painting
Russell’s Painting
TNT Painting
Top Painters
True Colors Painting
West Coast Painting

Is your Name Available to Use?

At this point, you should have several top considerations to choose from. And the best way to narrow it down further is to check each one for availability.

This step is vital because using a name that someone else is using could be very costly, time-consuming to rebrand your business, and possibly embarrassing. There are several places to look to check whether a name is available to use, so let’s walk through each one.

Trademark Search

Trademarks are the most critical, so we’ll start here.

If a name or phrase is trademarked, you’re not allowed to use it in a similar capacity. So, run a trademark search for each business name you’re considering and cross off those that aren’t available.

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Local Search

Just because there isn’t a federal trademark on a name doesn’t mean the name you want is available. That’s because there is a trademark known as a common law trademark. A common law trademark isn’t filed anywhere but provides someone who is using that name in commerce some limited rights in their geographical area to use the name. It can be hard to define how far geographically these rights extend as each industry is different. Still, at a basic level, someone can’t open a business and name it the same or similar name as a competing business in town. If you think the name could potentially create confusion with customers, it is usually best to find another one to use to avoid potential legal issues down the road.

To do a local search, open up the phone book (if you still have one), and do a Google search to see if there are any local competitors with a similar business name to the one you want to use.

Cross off any similar names from your list and take the rest and let’s keep checking.

State Entity Search (If Applicable)

If you plan to register your painting company as a corporation or LLC, you must register with a unique business name. Each state requires every corporation or LLC to register a unique name for their entity. This doesn’t necessarily protect your name from anyone else using it, but nobody can register a corporation or LLC under the same name in your state.

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If you find the name is in use, cross it off your list and move on.

Domain Name Availability

Website addresses aren’t as critical as the first three searches, but it’s still worth doing. Typically, you want your domain name to be “yourbusinessname.com” without any numbers, dashes, etc.

It’s easiest for customers to remember, but these are hard to come by.

However, you can explore other configurations and extensions if your preferred domain name isn’t available. Just remember your customers may have a more difficult time finding you online.

You can start with . Type in the domain name you want to use to see if it’s available. The tool also returns other possibilities you may want to consider.

Social Media Accounts

Next, especially if you are stuck between a couple of names, check and see if anyone is already using your potential painting company names on social media. Consider which platforms you plan to use and start with those.

Keep in mind you may have to shorten your company name for some platforms. Twitter only allows 15 characters, for example.

Start with your preferred platforms and do a quick search for your new name. If nothing pops up, that likely means no one is using it, and you’re good to go.

Example: Someone is using startingyourbusiness on Instagram, so I would have to choose a different handle, making it more difficult for customers to find me.

Vanity Phone Number

An inexpensive way to make your business stick out and is easier for your customers to remember is to get a custom phone number with your business name. These are affordable, too, with pricing typically around $10-$25 per month, depending on the level of features you need.

Companies like and let you type in words to quickly see if a local or toll-free number is available.

Hopefully, you now have a shortlist of good name ideas for your business. Once you have this list narrowed down to just a few and researched that they are all available, start asking friends, family, and potential customers their thoughts to get feedback and then pick your perfect painting company name!