Tips & Ideas For Naming A Funeral Home

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Last Updated on October 14, 2020

Considering there are more than 29,000 funeral homes in the United States, it’s no surprise settling on a unique name when starting a funeral home business is no easy task.

Picking the right name gives potential customers an idea about your business’s services, creates a good first impression, and helps you stand out from the competition.

What funeral home names are you allowed to use? How do you come up with something the represents your brand best? And what about business name best practices?

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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 Funeral Home Name

If you’re struggling to choose a company name for your funeral home, one of the best things to do is just to 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. Location-Specific Terms

Many funeral homes 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.

2. 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 funeral home 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.

3. 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 F” to come up with a name like Family Funeral or E for Endless Eternity 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. Just write them all down as some of the more interesting ones may spark better ideas later.

4. 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 customers remembering the specific letters you chose are pretty small.

5. 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 funeral home could use an image of a dove or a sunset and focus the name around the image.

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6. 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 or the name of an important family member, which a lot of funeral homes do.

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.

7. Look at the Names of Other Funeral Homes

Here is a list of existing funeral home names 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!

918funeral
Adams Funeral Home
Advantage Cremation Service
Affordable Funeral Home
Affordable Funeral Service Of Ky
All Faiths Funeral Home
American Family Funeral Center
Angel Funeral Home
Apostle One Funeral Home
Austin Natural Funerals
Baker Funeral Home
Barkley Memorial Funeral Home
Bayou Mortuary Transport Service
Bayview Crematory & Burial Service
Blair Mortuary & Cremations
Blairs Direct Cremation & Burial
Brown’s Mortuary Service
Celebration Life Funeral Home
Central Funeral Home
Central New York Funeral Service
Church Funerals
Cincinnati Funeral
Clarity Funerals & Cremation
Clark County Funeral Service
Community Funeral Home
Cremation Care Providers
Daniels Family Funeral Service
DFW Crematory & Mortuary
Dignity Funeral Service
Discount Funerals
Emily Kievet Funeral Director
Epona Undertaking
Estes Funeral Options
Eternal Light Funeral Home
Eternity Funeral Home
Evergreen Funeral Home & Cemetery
Excalibur Funeral Service
Fall Creek Of LA Funeral Home
Family First Funeral Home
Family Memorial Service
Family To Family Funeral
Final Legacy
Final Tribute Funeral Service
Florida Funerals
Funerals By Janet Dunn
Garden View Funeral Home
Gateway Funerals & Cremation
Grace Funeral Home
Guardian Angels Funeral Home
H & H Funeral Service
Heavenly Angels Funeral Home
Heaven’s Gate Funeral Home
Heritage Funeral & Cremation
Hidden Valley Funeral Home
Horizon Funeral Care
House Of Peace Funeral Home
Lakes Funeral Home 24 Hour
Legacy Options Bonita Springs
Liberty Mortuary
Love Funeral Home
Lowman’s Arizona Funeral Home
Maplewood Funeral
Marco Island Funeral Home
Memorial Chapel
Memorial Funeral Home
Moments Funeral Home
Mortuary Services Of Florida
Northern Star Mortuary
Palm Harbor Life Celebration
Parkside Memorial Chapels
People’s Community Funeral Home
Prestige Mortuary
Return To Nature Funeral Home
Riverview Funeral Home
Serenity Funeral Home
Shalom Funeral Chapel
Sound Choice Cremation
Statewide Funeral Service
Sunnyside Service
Sunset Funeral Care
Sunshine Mortuary & Cremations
Superior Funeral Home Mclemore
Traditions Funeral & Crematory
Tribute Funeral Home
Trinity Memorial Funeral Home
Valley of Peace Cremation & Burial
West Valley Funeral Home
Westside Family Mortuary
Youngstown Burial
Your Traditions Cremation

Checking the Availability of Your Top Considerations

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 uses 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 just 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 funeral home 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 Profiles

Next, especially if you are stuck between a couple of names, check and see if anyone is already using your potential funeral home 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 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.

Hopefully, you now have some ideas to name your funeral home. 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 funeral home name!