Tips & Ideas For Naming An Ice Cream Shop

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Last Updated on October 12, 2020

Considering there are more than 14,316 ice cream shops in the United States alone, it’s no surprise settling on a unique name when starting an ice cream shop can be a chilling 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 ice cream shop 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 best ice cream business name and how to make sure your favorite choices are available.

Let’s dive in!

Tips for Choosing the Perfect Ice Cream Shop Name

If you’re struggling to develop a creative ice cream shop name, 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. Consider the Products You Plan to Offer

There are several types of products that can be sold at an ice cream parlor, so it’s worth considering incorporating those in your name. Maybe you want to focus on custard or sorbet or gelato. Perhaps you’re considering offering other novelty treats.

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

Many ice cream shops 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 and creative name for an ice cream shop 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 C” to come up with a name like Custard Creamery or Chilly Cones 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.

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 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, an ice cream shop could use an image of an ice cream cone or a popsicle and focus the name around the image.

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7. 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. 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 Ice Cream Shops

Here is a list of our favorite ice cream shop names from existing businesses 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!

212 Ice Cream Studio
7 Star Ice Cream
Aldos Italian Ice & Gelato
Alexandre Family Creamery
Alphabet Scoop
Amy’s Wicked Slush
Andy’s Frozen Custard
Art Of Gelato
Bahama Buck’s
Baja Ice Cream
Baltimore Snowball
Bango Creamery
Beach City Creamery
Bear Hand Ice Cream
Bella’s Gelato Shoppe
Below Zero Italian Ice
Big Foot Ice Cream
Blast Ice Cream
Blissfully Sweet Shaved Ice
Blossoms Creamery
Blue Whale Ice Cream
Brain Freeze
Bruster’s Real Ice Cream
Bubbies Ice Cream
Cabana Boy Ice Cream
California Frozen Treats
Catalina Ice Cream Corp
Cauldron Ice Cream Company
Cheery Cherries Ice Cream Parlour and Coffee Bar
Choux Creme
Churn Urban Creamery
Churned Creamery
Chyll Rolled Creamery & Boba
Cold Cones Ice Cream Shoppe
Cold Heart Ice Cream
Cold World Ice Cream
Cone Thugs Ice Cream
Cookie Doh Creamery
Cosmic Ice Cream
Country Creamery
Coyote Ice Cream
Creamery At Alkali Flat Cmnty
Creams & Dreams
Creme & Sugar
Creme Frozen Custard & Drinks
Dave’s Gourmet Ice Cream
Delicious Cream
Dolce Italian Ice
Double Scoops
Downtown Creamery
Flavors Creamery
Float Station
Freedom Shaved Ice
Fresh Rolled Ice Cream
Frost Creamery
Frost Gelato At Del Sur
Frosty Queen Express
Frozen World
Fruityfresca
Fruta All Natural Ice Cream
Gelato Go
G’s Creamery
Golden Spoon
Guava Lava Frozen Dessert Bar
Guru Ice Cream
Gusto Italian Gelato
Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream
Hang Loose Hawaiian Shave Ice
Happy Cones
Holy Roly Ice Cream
Hometown Creamery
How We Roll Ice Cream
I Scream For Ice Cream
Ice Cream Delight
Ice Cream Giant
Ice Cream Hut
Icy Rush Co
Igloo Ice Cream
Inside The Scoops
Island Creamery
Just Chill N Ice Cream Truck
Karma Ice Cream
Kiddo’s Creamery
KOOL Dayz Ice Cream
Lepanto Dairy Freeze
Lick Frozen Pops
Lickety Split
Lisa’s Rolled Ice Cream & Shakes
Little Calf Creamery & Cafe
Little Man Ice Cream
Little Truckee Ice Creamery
Long Beach Creamery
Love Ice Cream
Lucky Cat Rolled Ice Cream
Magnolia Ice Cream & Treats
Malt Shop
Marble Slab Creamery
Mardi Gras Snowball Shoppe
Mighty Ice Cream
Milkbomb Ice Cream
Minions Ice Cream
Mister Softee AZ
Moo Gelato
Moonside Creamery
Mr. Matcha
Mr. Shakes
My Scoops
No Limit Shakes & Ice Cream
Nova Ice Cream
Papa Ice Cream
Paradise Ice Cream
Polar Bear Ice Cream
Polar Ice Cream
Pop Up Gelato
Powder Shaved Snow
Revival Ice Cream
Rock Salt Ice Cream
Roll ‘n Scoop
Roll Up Creamery & Cafe
Rollin Deep Ice Cream
Safe Cone Zone
Scoops Ice Cream Shop
Scream Creamery
Shake’s Frozen Custard
Smitten Ice Cream
Snow Zone
Snow’s Creamery
Street Creamery
Sub Zero Ice Cream & Yogurt
Sugar Momma Desserts
Sugar Plum Snocones
Sunset Sweets Ice Cream
Sweet Puffs Ice Cream
Sweet Retreat
Sweet Scoops
Sweet Treats
Swirlz Creamery
Tastee Freeze
Thai Scream Ice Cream
The Konery
The Waffle Cone
Top This Frozen Desserts
Toshi’s Yogurt & Ice Cream
U Scream 4 Ice Cream
Vanilla Bean Creamery
Wrap N’ Roll

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 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, but at a basic level, someone can’t open a small 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 ice cream business 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 ice cream shop 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 good name ideas for naming your ice cream shop. 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 ice cream shop name!