As someone that has spent more time thinking about this than probably I should have, potentially (almost) even more than actual content, I am very VERY thankful for this video
I go by Cosmic online. I made a priest on WoW and named it Cosmicdestruction because I wanted something galaxy/space themed. After that priest, I knew I needed to shorten it and on most games I went by Cosmicdestro. I dislike multiple syllables but i knew Cosmic was heavily taken. Main reason for the name is because I enjoy the thought of the universe and galaxies. I do not a lot about it but I am always down to learn about space as much as possible and it is so mysterious. So, I like to think of myself as a big personality with a lot to learn from. I am still learning myself as I get more into streaming, so it has been an amazing venture. Finally have been consistent with streaming but now making a schedule and working on making actual content. I really need to sub to the patreon.
It was pretty simple for me to come up with my username. Most of my online friends know me by "Yang" as that's my character's name in FFXIV, but I feel when most people hear "Yang" as a name it's more associated towards females. Since I'm male I simply took that name and tried meshing it with different male names until I got a combination I was happy with, "Yang" + "Nathan" = "Yangathan". Since I haven't really started making anything content wise I might for fun go back to the drawing board to throw more combos together, just in case I stumble upon something I like more.
I came up with my name because I wanted something loosely pointing to my Asian heritage, and could also be also encapsulate talking about things that involve Asian culture (whether it's anime, videogames, food, etc.)
Amavidi came from 2 latin words: -amavi = I loved -vidi = I saw ...so it kind of becomes "I loved what I saw" - but it's also unique and I can easily rank in SEO terms
I chose my name because when I started drawing webcomics I wasn't exactly talented, and the internet can be mean so I just decided to lean into and own it. I like to think I've gotten better over the years and turned the name ironic, but I'm still happy with it.
If anyone remembers NFL Street 2, me and my uncle needed a name for our team since we played together. This was well over 15 years ago and I have been going by Jag (Josh and Gabe) on everything, social and gaming, ever since.
Hey Devin, love the video. Do you have any videos on how to start a business (potentially how you started your business) or how to come up with the idea that starts a business? Thanks!
My username is a fake masculine word for Legend in Spanish. It tracks, easy to dominate on SEO, and since it's made up - no competition. Pretty simple.
I honestly did what you recommended when determining my user name. I made a long list of variations of my name, nicknames, and words that best described me best. In the end, I chose a name that was available on most platforms. I also just googled myself incognito to check SEO and I'm happy with the results! 👍
Started my professional career in Counter-Strike under the name "Nibbler" which was inspired from Futurama. Over time, I noticed people usually ended up just calling me "Nibbs" for short. Over the years I quickly learned that "Nibbs" was taken on pretty much everything and around the time of competing in Overwatch and being granted Twitch Partnership, I figured then would be the best time to tighten things up and "own" my name by spelling it differently along with dominating SEO.
I've been going by xKumei for a few years now. Basically the last username I was using (Robomajor, very generic) I made when I was 11 and it was time for a change when I became an adult. I actually spent a few months looking for a new one, but nothing fit. "Engastrimyth" was interesting but kind of a mouthful, my friend said it sounded like you were choking. Basically it means ventriloquist. But for the reasons outlined in the video I didn't stick with it. Eventually I decided to rewatch Xiaolin Showdown for fun. But when they came upon their ultimate move, the Dragon X Kumei formation, I was like "That's it! That sounds awesome." When it comes to SEO for xKumei, it's actually really great despite coming from a show. Comes right up to my gaming profiles. The only problems I have with it are that when I talk to people in voice chat, they always just say Kumei without the X. But the SEO for Kumei is significantly worse. It kind of made me wonder if I should change it to just Koomay, kind of like Chef Boyardee did (it used to be Boiardi in Italian before it came to America), but it just doesn't look as nice.
So I have several business names and they developed in different ways. For this dead board game youtube channel it was actually really easy. I just found a phrase folks use in the board game hobby. Late to the table is something folks said offen enough that stuck when I first heard it. My photography business took way more planning but its "Love Long and Prosper". I figured that one out by figuring out my ideal client (geeks obviously), looked up a ton of shows, quotes and inspiration. Then I put all of this in an excel file and posted on FB and Twitter offering whoever who came up with the name or something that eventually helped me get to my name a free wedding shoot. Took about 2 weeks but eventually someone came up with "Love Long and Prosper" from Star Trek's "Live Long and Prosper" and while it's a mouthful and longer than I would've liked....its definitely something that sticks when folks hear it if they are geeks.
My first alias was a play off of my last name "Hudson". I did "Hudscum" but it wasnt until it was read in chat by streamers that I realized it wasnt being taken as "Hud-Scum"....it was taken worse
Branding can definitely be a struggle. I originally came up with UltraViolet Arts to brand my illustrations. I wanted it to be evocative of visual art, and also reflect the subtext that makes art powerful. Showing meaning and kind of reading between the lines. It doesn't fit that 3 syllable or less rule but it is often abbreviated to UVA and people seem to like it. My SEO isn't bad, when I have the funds I need to buy a few things like the instagram handle and .com url, I own the .ca version though. I plan on expanding it from my personal art and gaming content potentially an animation studio or something like it
The logic behind the Amazon name is the fact that originally the company sold only books. Books are made of paper, which is made of wood, which logically and exotically is associated with the greatest forest jn the world. Therefore this would be bigger than the actual Amazon in terms of content and no trees would be harmed. Also, the letter Z is very powerful and the syllables as Devin mentioned.
I tend to go by Silver Stripe in most places these days. I used to write a ton and created tons of characters for a variety of reasons. One common theme with a lot of characters was a silver stripe down the spine, typically from a tattoo or a dye. I needed a hub for these characters and so that's how the name was born. Started using it everywhere and it's stuck.
I incorporated my first name in my channel name. My initial goal for the channel was to be the place I express my worldview, the lens through which I see the world around me, my “bifocals,” my Faith-focals. As it turns out, my religion is very important to me, so it seems like a good multi-nuanced fit. Since starting the channel, I’ve come to the conclusion that it could offer a lot of value if it became a kind of forum to explore the concept of truth through conversations about various peoples’ beliefs. (Inspired by one of your interviews, Devin.) I’m still trying to figure out how to pivot to this, since I’m starting from my own point of view, but once I make the transition, I still think the name will be a good fit.
My Nick: Enthaupter (German word roughly tanslated= Decapitator) The Story: It comes from the first MMO I ever played (Metin 2) and in the shop there was the "Enthauptungsklinge" wich was a low lvl item, but for me as a first time MMO player and probably lvl 1-3 player ist was totaly overpowerd and somehow this stuck with my and has been my go-to videogame name for the past like 10-15 years
Coming up with a name for my brand was a tough process. The person who help me the most was my older brother who doesn't understand anything about branding lol. Long story short, I wanted to use my real name but I figure that people misspronuntiating it would mauncomfortablertable. So I started tweaking the English version of it, Edward. I searched Edward's nicknames on Google and ran through a couple of them with my brother, we liked Edwa the most. Yet, Edwa was still a fairly common nickname taken in all social media, so I decided to look for a second word to accompany it. Walker, Wild, Punk, Ward... I wanted it to be easy to remember but nothing was coming. One week later and then finally come up with something, Live. I want to grow a career as a streamer, so Edwalive. I'm in love with that name, for me it's perfect and after watching this video I feel even better because by coincidence it checks with most of the tips you gave. Thank you, Devin, this is another excellent video!
So my name was based a lot on the same principles in this video. I made it around 2012 and its just a combo-word "Battle" referring to my favorite genre of games or movies. Action games, movies etc. "Drum" refers to my other hobby drumming. Grew up playing the drums in middle school and playing in the Drumline in High School. I also referred to my followers or subscribers on anything as my "Drumline"
The story behind my name is that I was 12 when I got my first online console (PS3) and lacked creativity. I liked Ape Escape 2, so I used the character's name "Pipotchi", because I liked that character and I like that name. It was taken, of course, so I added "Samurai" at the front cause I was fresh off the weeb-hotpress. The name isn't particularly special by itself, but I've grown attached to it as an identity and even ended up with the alias "Sam" because of it, which multiple friends still refer to me by, so it's probably how I'm going to stay for the long haul. It also turns out, not many people have used the name Pipotchi online, so some variant of Pipotchi, SPipotchi or Samurai Pipotchi has always been available to me. I've been one of the only people using the name and have had it for 14+ years, so I kind of do creep up to the top on the SEO ladder. For a short while, I was even more likely to come up than the actual character my name was based off of.
I was sitting on the name select screen of Street Fighter V (the game that would kickstart my career) and I picked two things that I liked: the discipline and strength of the Shaolin monks; my favorite salty snack, pretzels (salt is pretty ingrained in FGC culture so it worked out)
It used to be SuperSmashDan and I was targeting a career in video game music. It was a nickname I had in school. At the time games and smash were a lot more niche so this might have been enough, but as those things grew over the next 15 years it became obvious that I needed to be more specific. I also didn't like the SSD shortened down version when solid state drives became popular 😂 As someone who primarily plays retro games and loves old hardware, has released music on vinyl, cassette, etc, this one really suits me in a way that I don't think will change. I wanted my main purpose to be clear (music, not smash bros) and have me and my passions in it. I like the RMD initials too. My only reservation with it is that I don't want to be considered someone who is stuck in the past - I'm much more about bringing the lessons of the past forward. I really like the branding of ModernVintageGamer, for example. But it is what it is for now.
Post Graphic Design: Start brainstorming names on a page until it's full, with a few seed words and a thesaurus tab open. Highschool: Make up sounds by smashing consonants and vowels together until you get a word that sounds good.
I got my name from my favourite brand of bass guitars “Spector” I had spent years trying different names and brands and Spectakil was one I kept going back too. I actually think it’s a little cheesy but it’s working for me. I run a gaming channel on RUclips after giving up on Twitch, it’s going well and the name kind of fits the content.
My online identity is a nickname based on my surname. On some platforms I’ve added AU to the end but that doesn’t work so well when only lower case is used. I used to vlog a bit but I wanted to keep some separation between my online presence and my work life. In the end it doesn’t really matter as sooner or later a workmate discovers my channel and it becomes a hot topic for a few days.
Full Name, no changes. It's a bit of a pain to spell, but SEO is pretty great for it due to being fairly uncommon. Originally started out not knowing exactly what my channel and my brand would turn into (but had originally planned on making games or art). The direction my channel went was art turned professional and it was helpful to already be established in this way. Most online games I still go by 'Schwitz' though, a nickname in highschool (taken directly from the end of my lastname) but just a few letters quickly turn it into something terrible from WWII so I tend to avoid it in more professional settings.
I've gone through this process a lot of times(to marginal degrees of success) and the thing I always circle back to is how much something sticks in the memory. I have a pretty mundane given name, and I'm not super interested in variations on my real name because of my family. This name isn't really in line with the syllable guideline, but so far it's been good for being memorable. IDK though I'm just a dude who likes to talk about games and stuff.
I choose Agent Murden because I love spy movies and stuff and my last name is Murden… but also when I play games I play more stealthy and strategic which kinda goes well with a secret agent thing
I chose the name Riokaii vaguely based on these principles without knowing it. It works as a real life first name Rio last name Kaii also, despite not being real at all. I have loved the name ever since, with the singular issue i've ran into being the double letter i at the end (because the original spelling i wanted of ryokai was taken most everywhere). Many people first read it as Riokali, with an L. Not a bad name either, but a bit too "league champion-esque" for me :P The original sound was sparked from watching the Animegraphy 2013 AMV here: ruclips.net/video/bZ1DlJxsUg8/видео.html Specifically the buildup and moment around 1:25-1:30 I then looked up what that phrase actually means in japanese, and it was something similar to "Roger" or "understood" which I butcher translated into noun form to mean the concept of "understanding" itself, a topic of knowledge gain and mental processing was a character trait of mine that I highly valued and wanted to subtlety embrace. A few spelling tweaks later for originality, and here I am 5ish years later.
I pretty deduced most of this method by thinking of big brand names. I also wanted a name that could be read without instructions, contained no numbers because I thought it tacky, although it was supposed to mimic "RUclips" but JJtube was taken. I think out of all variations of my name, I have the one with most meaningful results due to my online presence. It's also a variation that tends to be available when new platforms pop up, but I still take the name even if I don't use the platform much, like TikTok.
Personal Brand: Chillz I was going to underground raves when I was 16, realized no one could remember my name as it was 3 syllables (Anthony). Started writing a list of nicknames, mimiq was one and had about 10 then a breeze came through the window and I got a shiver down my spine. All my friends, all my family call me Chillz and have for almost 2 decades now :/ Live Comedy Show Business: iD Comedy Was putting together an agency for comedians in Sydney, Australia using the name "Identify" as in identifying talent. Shortened that down to iD (the i is in the back of the D for the logo) Show: Magic Mic Comedy Venue was named Monkey Magic, open mic show, Magic Mic. This has lead to some annoying cross over between Magic Mike, magicians, and the like. The brand is too established now to change it though haha
I choose my name because I still wanted some anonymity while still having an easy to remember name. I don’t hold complete control on this username, but I also don’t produce content yet. In the future, I plan to drop the “1” when I can do that across all platforms
When I first made a twitter account it was a trendy thing to do to mix it up a bit so I used my middle name instead of my last name. That got me Patrick Stirling. When I began to think about starting a channel and brand I had business ambitions from the beginning, and I believe it was from Devin that I first heard, "in a gold rush it's good to be the guy selling pickaxes and shovels." I knew that's what I wanted to do in the streaming/new content creator space. So I left my channel as Patrick Stirling but immediately began to brand the business at the same time (starting with free preset and template downloads) as Stirling Supply Company. Tools and training for digital creators. I really like how evocative it, it feels mature and treats the space with some maturity as well.
Snappy Science came about by doing what it said. I make science videos that are generally 2 mins or less. I chose not to use my name as I have a few other ventures and didn't want to mix the brands together. I don't hit the 3 syllable rule I've realised but for a small channel my SEO is already strong. Great vid Devin.
This is totally not touched on this video and it's REALLY important so please read!!! I have a very long history with my name! I made a whole video about it. "Song of Alchemy" is a name I used for a very long time due to just anime. But when I started a brand, I tried to change it, to "Kin Rensei" and then later a walkback to "Song Rensei". But this change had a strong negative imposter effect as I felt I was not authentically me. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO REMAIN WHO YOU ARE IN YOUR NAME. You can transform it, sure, and sometimes I think "Song Alchemy" is fine, but don't be who you aren't. Also another reason real names work so well. I won't link my video because self promotion but it's on my channel if you are interested!
Legionless -> he was a hero that helped players in the first raid of Destiny (the game). I connected with the character and the game. It also sounds kind of cool
I make short, simple, to the point tutorial videos on simple concepts to help people improve their experience. My original thought was Common Sense Gaming... but Common Sense was really over used. So I combined Common sense with my old gamer tag, OrdinaryGuy... to create Ordinary Sense.
The way I got my name is that when I was in HS I was into metal and japan so me and some people made a band named Lilanette. The name came from our band leader who was our singer and she thought it was cool, plus if you write that in katakana it looks really cool. That name is a mix of Lily with the name anette. She told us it was a way of showing love in different ways. How kids name their teddy bears etc. So we all ended up getting a PSN and you know how bands will have the band name with their name? Our username wasa the same idea but it was too long so we put Lily_membername. my SEO sucks though bc lilypichu dominates it so im working on a new name xD but hikaru came from when i was in 9th grade i believe and I wanted to help people so my friend said hikaru would be a good name because "I bring light into the world by helping people".
i got @section on my instagram because i’ve been squatting on it since like 2015. i want to rebrand to something that more fits my name (spin off “ZN” in some way) but literally everything is taken or the usernames have been pulled by social media, and they’re worth over $10k each to get now. as a uni student, that’s kinda outta my budget. what do i do
Thank you this video is super helpful, and actually is a really good sales pitch to the value of your Patreon, definitely need to join it. I actually came up with Krovikan years ago, I was playing a game called Vampire The Masquerade with friends and needed a vampire name for the character I was playing. I thought of this MTG card "Krovikan Vampire" that I always wanted to make a good strategy with; however, couldn't and thought that Krovikan is a good name. I've been using it as handling, and whenever I use it somewhere new, I always get people to mention how they like it. Based on your video, it's a terrible name, as I can't dominate SEO though, my YT channel is on the third page of google, so might as well not exist.
I started using the name Klayton as a gamertag name because back in the mid to late 2000's I was a very big fan of the Industrial/Rock band called Celldweller & the frontman of that band is named Klayton. Some odd years after I started going by Klayton was also around the time I was introduced to the local goth scene (I DJ under a different name as I keep my DJ & Gaming tag separate) & online I also joined a Role Play forum where it was encouraged that all RP characters had a first/last name. I went with Calix because I was looking for a name that fit the things I was really into at the time, the Goth scene, music, gaming. Calix was a name I picked when I was looking up male goth names/nicknames. I've gone by Klayton Calix ever since & it made sense to me to stick with that when I started streaming because my real name is wayyyyyy to common.
I made "isocuda" back in 2003 and intentionally keep it all lowercase. (the word isotope from my high school textbook + a Plymouth Barracuda that was on a magazine nearby.) I literally did it because I hated having numbers or symbols in a screen name AND I wanted something nobody else would have. I've never had to worry about my name, but I just passed the SEO check with flying colors haha. (It has sentimental value now, but most people will refer to me as "iso" casually or by my actual name, so I'm curious if that falls into the syllable rule because I don't mind people truncating it?)
I love rain and I love autumn and my paintings often include elements of runny paint as if color washed down by rain. My name is made up of two words Esen (Autumn in Bulgarian - a language dear to me and a country I love and where I currently live) and Ame (Rain in Japanese - my other big love). Originally when I tested the name it had proper spelling - Esename, but was mostly mispronounced by english speakers or pronounced sounding more like Ezenami (similar to creator deities Izanagi / Izanami) It was available everywhere so I stuck with it. But recently instagram disabled my account for no reason so I lost it there and now contemplating changing it completely especially since I'm just starting to grow my social media
My real full name is "Alexander Shirtcliffe" The problem was that 'alex' was super common, and most people would squint at me when I'd say 'shirtcliffe' cause it just sounds weird. So I shortened it, "Xander" is a really cool-sounding name that only like 2 celebrities are called (Xander Armstrong & Xander Cage). Also I cut the 'shirt' and added the j from my middle name. "Xander J Cliffe" I think it strikes the exact balance of basically being my real name while still being detached enough to be a 'stage name'
This video resonates with me a ton I remember when I was 12 coming up with a name and I found my real name with something else would be better (had no clue about anything about brands) this makes me feel good about mine
I happened into a brand based on my gamer user name and it's turned out to be not ideal. My name is fairly unique, easy to pronounce for English speakers, but it's spelled weirdly, and it's hard to manage for international audience. My content could go towards a Korean audience in the future, so ideally I'd like to change it to something that is easy to spell and say in both English and Korean. Something that would make sense for all the reasons in this video, but also make sense in Korean. It narrows options down but I think that will help me to pick something unique.
Spending a few thousand bucks for creating/developing a brand name when you're starting is a long stretch. If you can't come up with a perfect brand name by yourself when you're starting, just change it later.
Darthaggro stemmed from my WoW days, I always seemed to make enemies focus me, or I'd aggro them, as I played a Holy Priest healer role and the title of Darth derived from Star Wars title for dark lord. Over the years laziness and complacency is what keeps that edgy name around but if I were to rebrand I'd at least keep up with that dark, little bit of edgy, vibe but since I personally like being in support roles would like to hint that I'm not a bad person
The story behind my name actually has a triple meaning. I am Ser E Hero or SerEhero. I still don't know if to have all three words together or have them be separate. As someone who desires to go into the entertainment business, as a VTuber, rapper, entertainer, I've always wanted to be a hero. Ser E, pronounced in Spanish is "seré," which means "I will be". This part highlights my Spanish heritage. Then when you add the English word "hero", the full meaning means "I will be a hero", which is an affirmation for my life goal while highlighting my Spanish and English speaking backgrounds. On top of that, I've read that Ser is a title given to knights and that's what my VTuber avatar will represent once it's done. So you've got Ser E which people can call me that for short. Amy feedback would be appreciated
My name is 4 syllables and complicated to spell, I wish it was easier for the channel's sake haha. My business behind the scenes is "Subspace" because I want to create tools and community for creators to grow and improve.
CABBAGE BRAIN TAKE: I just went with what felt natural and went with my real name. I'm a personality and my brand is myself, as I do many different things, and since I have had to learn how to attach my real name to my identity anyway(I was assigned a different name and gender at birth but I changed those) it wouldn't make much sense to also try to go under a pen name. I'm a writer and content creator and part of my journey has been learning how to live as Rebecca Loran so it made sense to me, and my goal is that when people hear my name in the wild they know exactly who they're talking about and the various types of content I make.
Ahoy there, I'm Captn_Toodlez. You can find me over on Twitch and here on RUclips. Back when I was a kid I had a childhood nickname of "Toodlez" which was the name of a character from my favorite videogame series "Paper Mario." In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year-Door late chapter 6, Mario and gang meets a posh Toad named "Toodles" on a train called the Excess Express. When I was a kid, I LOVED TOADS. (My favorite characters in the Mario series.) Due to this fact and my (real) name starting with a T and actually sounds similarly close to Toodles, I decided to take on the nickname, changing the "S" at the end to a "Z" and thus, Toodlez was born. The title "Captn" came along a lil later in life. I came up with my user/brand name after I worked in the Cellular Service industry about a decade ago, a colleague and I became friends/business partners working as Small to Medium Business Specialists for the company, being that I was our first SMB Specialist and she came in under me for mentorship, we refered to eachother as Captain and Firstmate. Essentially Toodlez became Captn and so became CaptnToodlez.
My name has kind of been pulled from a few different areas and changed over time. Originally, my brand went by NoodleReaper. I had made this name to replace a generic Xbox generator gamertag "FeistyLemur". When I started streaming I just kept NoodleReaper seeing as how that was my gamer tag at the time. I liked the idea of "Noodle" because it was fun, a little wacky, and who doesn't love ramen? But obviously being a pretty common word it was hard to get accounts with that name. At the time "Reaper" seemed edgy and matched the car I had created in Rocket League that I named Reaper. After streaming for about a year or so, I decided I wanted to "grow up" and move beyond the reaper term. So I kept the Noodle and changed my name to "n00dlevision". A cross between Noodle and Television. I think this name was actually more clever than my current one. Unfortunately I was never really happy with the 0's instead of o's due to the name being taken in some places. So finally after another year or so, I decided to make another switch. I decided to take inspiration from the Spongebob Episode when he's in driving school and receives "Good Noodle" stars. I felt like this really combined a sense of fun and childlike nostalgia and entertainment. I kept the television concept at the end due to struggles getting account names consistent on every platform and also as a callback to the Noodle Television thing. Over all this time though, I've really just gone by "Noodle" or "Noods" among viewers/other content creators. After trying multiple names I've felt that this one has stuck the best. And also led to more viewer interaction with coming up with nicknames like "BadNoodle" or "GoodEnoughNoodle". I do have some other name ideas I've always held onto over time that I hope to use someday and actually like a little bit more (like my Discord username J4x which is a play off the name Jack -> J4ck -> J4x), but overall I've found the content I'm currently making doesn't really fit these other name ideas right now. Also great video Devin. Been lurking on your videos for a couple years now and try to use them as learning exercises. For example, it really had been a while since I considered where my name came from but watching this video gave me the opportunity to run back through my history and analyze the changes I made.
I've stuck with my name since 2016 so I've grown attached to it but also people just call me "Metro" or "Metty" a lot of the time so I've been tryna decide if I wanted to just switch my stuff to "Metty" if It'd be beneficial for branding mostly. I'm really stuck on the decision. What do you think?
I was an escape artist as a baby, to solve this issue my parents would swaddle both me and my brother in blankets. I was "Taco Timmy" and he was "Bradley Burrito" I simply reworked the name to not be as "child-ish" per say
My username and my branding comes from the 90s educational shows I watched growing up. I'm also a fan of rhyming schemes. So I wanted something that rolled off the tongue. As I started to look into what I was putting into my videos, I was inviting the viewers to come in and learn D&D with Me and it just stuck.
I chose this username because my real name is Nathan - and at the time, I was trying to start a new identity for myself online. I was bullied a lot in school so I started seeing "Nathan" as my IRL introverted side where I struggled to be myself. Online, I was the opposite of that - and so ThisIsntNath was born.
My little brother used to call me “Rara” because he couldn’t say my name “RobertKeith” and the nickname stuck. I have thought about creating another brand under “robertKeith” never know!
I sort of followed a similar process in coming up with my name. I wanted something that included part of my name so it is more personable but also that really flowed well. Also it happened to have great SEO.
my name came from gaming with friends in PC Cafe's in 2001. I was on a hotstreak in CounterStrike (before the days of CSGO) and was dubbed "The Infernoman" because I was on fire/hot as hell. I have always used the name for the majority of my screen names...while it's a lot of syllables, The Infernoman DOES pop up on the front of google and it's everything I have (my socials and content pages) minus one random IMDB link
I thought of my username in 1st grade actually… I was brainstorming ways to make cool code-names out of all my friends names(starting with mine of course) so I took my name(Anthony), then added every other letter of my name(Atoy), and put my last name initial(K) and got AnthonyAtoyK! That, however, did not work so smoothly for anyone else’s name in my friend group, so I was the only one that held on to it. I later ended up using this for my email, and most of my social media moving forward through the years. And then more recently, I rebranded and changed my username to AtoyK to simplify, and I think it sounds way better! (Ey-Toy-Kay)
My username/future planned brand name is really interesting because it's got such a dumb origin story. Basically my brother wanted me to play with him and I wanted to sleep (we were kids). So he started telling this story about "Tawlney" (real first name is Paul). I loved this name ever since because of what the story was about (not telling yet), the fact that it's super unique short and has an easy to pronounce (sort of) name since it's just Tall Knee. Fitting since I'm relatively tall and I have knees. What can I say? I love it.
thanks for the video Devin, my username came with a statement from a "friend", at the time he said "only francisco could like a weird pokemon like bulbasaur", and as the meme goes "i took that personally" also i when i was new on twitch i gave a twitch prime to PointCrow by accident, and he refused to read my former username "fjcalarge" its just my initials and last name put together, so rebranding was necessary also lilypichu and pokimane have pokemon names even though they don't have pokemon as a large part of their brands so i rebranded without batting an eye
My name was given by a friend. He thought I was too serious about anything in life. He also told me I was realistic in my way of thinking. Here is how my name "Darrell" became "DAREALITYY"
Devin playing path of building while recording the video :)
2 года назад+1
First of all thanks Devin for another cool video. Always a pleasure to watch these cause I always learn something new. Also I often go back to these videos to watch it again. Really good stuff. About my screen name. Well, had tons of them as growing up but my last one is the one that I feel comfy the most and I have no intention to change it. My first name is Igor but few years ago kids in my extended family circle started calling me Igi and it was cute so I kind of took that from them. Now my daughter calls me Igi all the time, instead of Dad lol. Since I am big when it comes to weight, I added FatBoy to it. I know it might sound weird some but I am OK with that and it's not bothering me. So, I go with FatBoyIgi and often joke about the short version of that goes FBI (first letters) lol. I have no intention to go into any business or start a company so never thought deeper about it all. I did the google search in incognito mode and came up pretty good. All I have to do is continue using it and posting stuff on social media hehe.
16:08 I came up with my channel name by putting my IRL surname into an English to Chinese translator. I'm of Chinese heritage, so I thought this would tie in well with who I am. Out came Zuchiy; so I ditched the 'y' for a second 'i' & here we are; 2 years later !
My brand name came with inspiration from Dutch EDM DJ Martin Garrix. His real name is Martijn Garritsen, but because that wouldn't work well for international audiences he made it more 'English' and accessible to everyone. I did a very similar thing when I was thinking of an online alias or brand name. As I am Dutch too I walked into the same problems as Garrix, so I decided to go for DezzNytes, which has really worked well for me so far. It's a unique name, follows the 2-3 syllable rule, easy to dominate SEO and people can shorten it easily to call me 'Dezz' which makes it more personal and could even be seen as a real personal name. All in all I like my name. (the one downside, which is in itself also an upside, is that sometimes my name gets mistaken as a Deez Nuts joke, which I've learned to just own)
I'll be honest, when I read your name and saw the size of your comment I was strapping myself in for a long, elaborate Deez Nutz joke and I was ready. Glad to have gotten some good insight and I'm sure its an easy 'foot in the door' for a new viewer!
My username is inspired by the GO in Pokémon GO (Originally also CS:GO). Jesper GO sounded dumb. GoJesper sounded like someone cheering me on (My IRL name is Jesper). That was an instant hit! Thanks alot for the video, basically telling me I did everything right with my brand name :-) - Cheers from Denmark!
My main requirements were 1) needed to be short and easy to remember, 2) I could get it on all socials 3) and hopefully meant something to me. i've always used a variant of Swapmeet (jswap, jswappy, swappy) but could not ever get them across all socials. Then I discovered that 5wappy was available and snagged it. It's not perfect; the 5 isn't super natural and some people call me FIVE-wappy instead of Swappy and some places don't let you start a name with a number, but overall I'm happy with it.
Thanks Devin, quick context: i've always struggled to come up w a cool variation on my name bc j & g are so difficult.. so first username: jg3n - my name is jacob and last name starts with "gen" so i just took the j and gen - 2 syllables, seems fine and all -- buuut the g in my name is actually pronounced as a hard "G" not a soft one.. so even tho i had that for 5+ years i kinda hated it since everyone pronounced it wrong.. second username : i switched to this very recently (~3 months ago maybe) - i actually really like genja.. i just don't like how it looks so I add 1 or 2 more a's (genjaa / genjaaa ) it seems to just sound and look better imo - and most of my friends call me by my last name so putting the gen in front kinda makes sense
My name is Benjamin, my favourite gaming franchise is metal gear solid. Hideo Kojima created metal gear so i chose Hideo Benjima cos I thought it would be a good conversation piece.
my username was gotten from my friend making puns of my real name (albert) and then when he said albeadle i knew it was meant to be and took it and made it my username for everything
I read somewhere that Devins real name is "Will Smith" but it had bad SEO so he changed it to Devin Nash
I don't know if you are joking, but I could have sworn in prior videos he has mentioned that Devin Nash isn't his real name.
This aged well 😂
@@alpenglowup Not as bad as the guy on Twitter named Will Smith 😅
@@xKumei Yeah because he changed it from Will Smith before the other Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he didn't want that heat.
Devin, would love to see a video about the pros and cons of changing a semi known branding and what could you expect when doing it!
As someone that has spent more time thinking about this than probably I should have, potentially (almost) even more than actual content, I am very VERY thankful for this video
I go by Cosmic online. I made a priest on WoW and named it Cosmicdestruction because I wanted something galaxy/space themed. After that priest, I knew I needed to shorten it and on most games I went by Cosmicdestro. I dislike multiple syllables but i knew Cosmic was heavily taken. Main reason for the name is because I enjoy the thought of the universe and galaxies. I do not a lot about it but I am always down to learn about space as much as possible and it is so mysterious. So, I like to think of myself as a big personality with a lot to learn from. I am still learning myself as I get more into streaming, so it has been an amazing venture. Finally have been consistent with streaming but now making a schedule and working on making actual content.
I really need to sub to the patreon.
Impeccable timing. Just finished editing my first video but I've been trying to think of a channel name. Clutch upload Devin.
It was pretty simple for me to come up with my username. Most of my online friends know me by "Yang" as that's my character's name in FFXIV, but I feel when most people hear "Yang" as a name it's more associated towards females. Since I'm male I simply took that name and tried meshing it with different male names until I got a combination I was happy with, "Yang" + "Nathan" = "Yangathan". Since I haven't really started making anything content wise I might for fun go back to the drawing board to throw more combos together, just in case I stumble upon something I like more.
I came up with my name because I wanted something loosely pointing to my Asian heritage, and could also be also encapsulate talking about things that involve Asian culture (whether it's anime, videogames, food, etc.)
Its good, got a ring, and the "cooka" probably helps seo.
The askreddit thread isn't in the video description
Amavidi came from 2 latin words:
-amavi = I loved
-vidi = I saw
...so it kind of becomes "I loved what I saw" - but it's also unique and I can easily rank in SEO terms
I chose my name because when I started drawing webcomics I wasn't exactly talented, and the internet can be mean so I just decided to lean into and own it. I like to think I've gotten better over the years and turned the name ironic, but I'm still happy with it.
If anyone remembers NFL Street 2, me and my uncle needed a name for our team since we played together. This was well over 15 years ago and I have been going by Jag (Josh and Gabe) on everything, social and gaming, ever since.
What do you think about podcast names? Should I add "with (Real Name)" on to the end of my brand?
Hey Devin, love the video. Do you have any videos on how to start a business (potentially how you started your business) or how to come up with the idea that starts a business? Thanks!
My username is a fake masculine word for Legend in Spanish. It tracks, easy to dominate on SEO, and since it's made up - no competition. Pretty simple.
Makes sense.
I honestly did what you recommended when determining my user name. I made a long list of variations of my name, nicknames, and words that best described me best. In the end, I chose a name that was available on most platforms. I also just googled myself incognito to check SEO and I'm happy with the results! 👍
Started my professional career in Counter-Strike under the name "Nibbler" which was inspired from Futurama. Over time, I noticed people usually ended up just calling me "Nibbs" for short. Over the years I quickly learned that "Nibbs" was taken on pretty much everything and around the time of competing in Overwatch and being granted Twitch Partnership, I figured then would be the best time to tighten things up and "own" my name by spelling it differently along with dominating SEO.
I've been going by xKumei for a few years now. Basically the last username I was using (Robomajor, very generic) I made when I was 11 and it was time for a change when I became an adult. I actually spent a few months looking for a new one, but nothing fit. "Engastrimyth" was interesting but kind of a mouthful, my friend said it sounded like you were choking. Basically it means ventriloquist. But for the reasons outlined in the video I didn't stick with it. Eventually I decided to rewatch Xiaolin Showdown for fun. But when they came upon their ultimate move, the Dragon X Kumei formation, I was like "That's it! That sounds awesome."
When it comes to SEO for xKumei, it's actually really great despite coming from a show. Comes right up to my gaming profiles. The only problems I have with it are that when I talk to people in voice chat, they always just say Kumei without the X. But the SEO for Kumei is significantly worse. It kind of made me wonder if I should change it to just Koomay, kind of like Chef Boyardee did (it used to be Boiardi in Italian before it came to America), but it just doesn't look as nice.
So I have several business names and they developed in different ways.
For this dead board game youtube channel it was actually really easy. I just found a phrase folks use in the board game hobby. Late to the table is something folks said offen enough that stuck when I first heard it.
My photography business took way more planning but its "Love Long and Prosper". I figured that one out by figuring out my ideal client (geeks obviously), looked up a ton of shows, quotes and inspiration. Then I put all of this in an excel file and posted on FB and Twitter offering whoever who came up with the name or something that eventually helped me get to my name a free wedding shoot. Took about 2 weeks but eventually someone came up with "Love Long and Prosper" from Star Trek's "Live Long and Prosper" and while it's a mouthful and longer than I would've liked....its definitely something that sticks when folks hear it if they are geeks.
My first alias was a play off of my last name "Hudson". I did "Hudscum" but it wasnt until it was read in chat by streamers that I realized it wasnt being taken as "Hud-Scum"....it was taken worse
allow me to respectfully KEKW sir
Branding can definitely be a struggle. I originally came up with UltraViolet Arts to brand my illustrations. I wanted it to be evocative of visual art, and also reflect the subtext that makes art powerful. Showing meaning and kind of reading between the lines. It doesn't fit that 3 syllable or less rule but it is often abbreviated to UVA and people seem to like it. My SEO isn't bad, when I have the funds I need to buy a few things like the instagram handle and .com url, I own the .ca version though. I plan on expanding it from my personal art and gaming content potentially an animation studio or something like it
The logic behind the Amazon name is the fact that originally the company sold only books. Books are made of paper, which is made of wood, which logically and exotically is associated with the greatest forest jn the world. Therefore this would be bigger than the actual Amazon in terms of content and no trees would be harmed. Also, the letter Z is very powerful and the syllables as Devin mentioned.
I tend to go by Silver Stripe in most places these days. I used to write a ton and created tons of characters for a variety of reasons. One common theme with a lot of characters was a silver stripe down the spine, typically from a tattoo or a dye. I needed a hub for these characters and so that's how the name was born. Started using it everywhere and it's stuck.
I incorporated my first name in my channel name. My initial goal for the channel was to be the place I express my worldview, the lens through which I see the world around me, my “bifocals,” my Faith-focals. As it turns out, my religion is very important to me, so it seems like a good multi-nuanced fit. Since starting the channel, I’ve come to the conclusion that it could offer a lot of value if it became a kind of forum to explore the concept of truth through conversations about various peoples’ beliefs. (Inspired by one of your interviews, Devin.) I’m still trying to figure out how to pivot to this, since I’m starting from my own point of view, but once I make the transition, I still think the name will be a good fit.
My Nick: Enthaupter (German word roughly tanslated= Decapitator)
The Story: It comes from the first MMO I ever played (Metin 2) and in the shop there was the "Enthauptungsklinge" wich was a low lvl item, but for me as a first time MMO player and probably lvl 1-3 player ist was totaly overpowerd and somehow this stuck with my and has been my go-to videogame name for the past like 10-15 years
Coming up with a name for my brand was a tough process. The person who help me the most was my older brother who doesn't understand anything about branding lol. Long story short, I wanted to use my real name but I figure that people misspronuntiating it would mauncomfortablertable. So I started tweaking the English version of it, Edward. I searched Edward's nicknames on Google and ran through a couple of them with my brother, we liked Edwa the most. Yet, Edwa was still a fairly common nickname taken in all social media, so I decided to look for a second word to accompany it. Walker, Wild, Punk, Ward... I wanted it to be easy to remember but nothing was coming. One week later and then finally come up with something, Live. I want to grow a career as a streamer, so Edwalive. I'm in love with that name, for me it's perfect and after watching this video I feel even better because by coincidence it checks with most of the tips you gave. Thank you, Devin, this is another excellent video!
No brand. Just love the videos!
So my name was based a lot on the same principles in this video. I made it around 2012 and its just a combo-word "Battle" referring to my favorite genre of games or movies. Action games, movies etc. "Drum" refers to my other hobby drumming. Grew up playing the drums in middle school and playing in the Drumline in High School.
I also referred to my followers or subscribers on anything as my "Drumline"
The story behind my name is that I was 12 when I got my first online console (PS3) and lacked creativity.
I liked Ape Escape 2, so I used the character's name "Pipotchi", because I liked that character and I like that name. It was taken, of course, so I added "Samurai" at the front cause I was fresh off the weeb-hotpress. The name isn't particularly special by itself, but I've grown attached to it as an identity and even ended up with the alias "Sam" because of it, which multiple friends still refer to me by, so it's probably how I'm going to stay for the long haul.
It also turns out, not many people have used the name Pipotchi online, so some variant of Pipotchi, SPipotchi or Samurai Pipotchi has always been available to me. I've been one of the only people using the name and have had it for 14+ years, so I kind of do creep up to the top on the SEO ladder.
For a short while, I was even more likely to come up than the actual character my name was based off of.
I was sitting on the name select screen of Street Fighter V (the game that would kickstart my career) and I picked two things that I liked: the discipline and strength of the Shaolin monks; my favorite salty snack, pretzels (salt is pretty ingrained in FGC culture so it worked out)
It used to be SuperSmashDan and I was targeting a career in video game music. It was a nickname I had in school. At the time games and smash were a lot more niche so this might have been enough, but as those things grew over the next 15 years it became obvious that I needed to be more specific. I also didn't like the SSD shortened down version when solid state drives became popular 😂
As someone who primarily plays retro games and loves old hardware, has released music on vinyl, cassette, etc, this one really suits me in a way that I don't think will change. I wanted my main purpose to be clear (music, not smash bros) and have me and my passions in it. I like the RMD initials too.
My only reservation with it is that I don't want to be considered someone who is stuck in the past - I'm much more about bringing the lessons of the past forward. I really like the branding of ModernVintageGamer, for example. But it is what it is for now.
Post Graphic Design: Start brainstorming names on a page until it's full, with a few seed words and a thesaurus tab open.
Highschool: Make up sounds by smashing consonants and vowels together until you get a word that sounds good.
I got my name from my favourite brand of bass guitars “Spector” I had spent years trying different names and brands and Spectakil was one I kept going back too. I actually think it’s a little cheesy but it’s working for me. I run a gaming channel on RUclips after giving up on Twitch, it’s going well and the name kind of fits the content.
My online identity is a nickname based on my surname. On some platforms I’ve added AU to the end but that doesn’t work so well when only lower case is used. I used to vlog a bit but I wanted to keep some separation between my online presence and my work life. In the end it doesn’t really matter as sooner or later a workmate discovers my channel and it becomes a hot topic for a few days.
Full Name, no changes. It's a bit of a pain to spell, but SEO is pretty great for it due to being fairly uncommon.
Originally started out not knowing exactly what my channel and my brand would turn into (but had originally planned on making games or art).
The direction my channel went was art turned professional and it was helpful to already be established in this way.
Most online games I still go by 'Schwitz' though, a nickname in highschool (taken directly from the end of my lastname) but just a few letters quickly turn it into something terrible from WWII so I tend to avoid it in more professional settings.
I've gone through this process a lot of times(to marginal degrees of success) and the thing I always circle back to is how much something sticks in the memory. I have a pretty mundane given name, and I'm not super interested in variations on my real name because of my family. This name isn't really in line with the syllable guideline, but so far it's been good for being memorable. IDK though I'm just a dude who likes to talk about games and stuff.
I don't know, man, if I met someone named CHUNGALODON I think I'd remember it.
I was just recently thinking about what sort of name to use. Thanks a lot for the video, Devin!
I choose Agent Murden because I love spy movies and stuff and my last name is Murden… but also when I play games I play more stealthy and strategic which kinda goes well with a secret agent thing
I chose the name Riokaii vaguely based on these principles without knowing it. It works as a real life first name Rio last name Kaii also, despite not being real at all.
I have loved the name ever since, with the singular issue i've ran into being the double letter i at the end (because the original spelling i wanted of ryokai was taken most everywhere). Many people first read it as Riokali, with an L. Not a bad name either, but a bit too "league champion-esque" for me :P
The original sound was sparked from watching the Animegraphy 2013 AMV here: ruclips.net/video/bZ1DlJxsUg8/видео.html Specifically the buildup and moment around 1:25-1:30
I then looked up what that phrase actually means in japanese, and it was something similar to "Roger" or "understood" which I butcher translated into noun form to mean the concept of "understanding" itself, a topic of knowledge gain and mental processing was a character trait of mine that I highly valued and wanted to subtlety embrace. A few spelling tweaks later for originality, and here I am 5ish years later.
I pretty deduced most of this method by thinking of big brand names. I also wanted a name that could be read without instructions, contained no numbers because I thought it tacky, although it was supposed to mimic "RUclips" but JJtube was taken. I think out of all variations of my name, I have the one with most meaningful results due to my online presence. It's also a variation that tends to be available when new platforms pop up, but I still take the name even if I don't use the platform much, like TikTok.
Personal Brand: Chillz
I was going to underground raves when I was 16, realized no one could remember my name as it was 3 syllables (Anthony).
Started writing a list of nicknames, mimiq was one and had about 10 then a breeze came through the window and I got a shiver down my spine.
All my friends, all my family call me Chillz and have for almost 2 decades now :/
Live Comedy Show Business: iD Comedy
Was putting together an agency for comedians in Sydney, Australia using the name "Identify" as in identifying talent.
Shortened that down to iD (the i is in the back of the D for the logo)
Show: Magic Mic Comedy
Venue was named Monkey Magic, open mic show, Magic Mic.
This has lead to some annoying cross over between Magic Mike, magicians, and the like.
The brand is too established now to change it though haha
Philip DeFrance used a fake name initially but then changed it to Philip DeFrance after he became famous.
I choose my name because I still wanted some anonymity while still having an easy to remember name. I don’t hold complete control on this username, but I also don’t produce content yet. In the future, I plan to drop the “1” when I can do that across all platforms
When I first made a twitter account it was a trendy thing to do to mix it up a bit so I used my middle name instead of my last name. That got me Patrick Stirling. When I began to think about starting a channel and brand I had business ambitions from the beginning, and I believe it was from Devin that I first heard, "in a gold rush it's good to be the guy selling pickaxes and shovels." I knew that's what I wanted to do in the streaming/new content creator space. So I left my channel as Patrick Stirling but immediately began to brand the business at the same time (starting with free preset and template downloads) as Stirling Supply Company. Tools and training for digital creators. I really like how evocative it, it feels mature and treats the space with some maturity as well.
Snappy Science came about by doing what it said. I make science videos that are generally 2 mins or less. I chose not to use my name as I have a few other ventures and didn't want to mix the brands together. I don't hit the 3 syllable rule I've realised but for a small channel my SEO is already strong. Great vid Devin.
This is totally not touched on this video and it's REALLY important so please read!!!
I have a very long history with my name! I made a whole video about it. "Song of Alchemy" is a name I used for a very long time due to just anime. But when I started a brand, I tried to change it, to "Kin Rensei" and then later a walkback to "Song Rensei". But this change had a strong negative imposter effect as I felt I was not authentically me. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO REMAIN WHO YOU ARE IN YOUR NAME. You can transform it, sure, and sometimes I think "Song Alchemy" is fine, but don't be who you aren't. Also another reason real names work so well.
I won't link my video because self promotion but it's on my channel if you are interested!
Legionless -> he was a hero that helped players in the first raid of Destiny (the game). I connected with the character and the game. It also sounds kind of cool
I make short, simple, to the point tutorial videos on simple concepts to help people improve their experience. My original thought was Common Sense Gaming... but Common Sense was really over used. So I combined Common sense with my old gamer tag, OrdinaryGuy... to create Ordinary Sense.
I was literally thinking of changing my twitch and RUclips name yesterday and now I see this! Thanks for this info more things to consider
The way I got my name is that when I was in HS I was into metal and japan so me and some people made a band named Lilanette. The name came from our band leader who was our singer and she thought it was cool, plus if you write that in katakana it looks really cool. That name is a mix of Lily with the name anette. She told us it was a way of showing love in different ways. How kids name their teddy bears etc. So we all ended up getting a PSN and you know how bands will have the band name with their name? Our username wasa the same idea but it was too long so we put Lily_membername. my SEO sucks though bc lilypichu dominates it so im working on a new name xD but hikaru came from when i was in 9th grade i believe and I wanted to help people so my friend said hikaru would be a good name because "I bring light into the world by helping people".
i got @section on my instagram because i’ve been squatting on it since like 2015. i want to rebrand to something that more fits my name (spin off “ZN” in some way) but literally everything is taken or the usernames have been pulled by social media, and they’re worth over $10k each to get now. as a uni student, that’s kinda outta my budget. what do i do
Thank you this video is super helpful, and actually is a really good sales pitch to the value of your Patreon, definitely need to join it.
I actually came up with Krovikan years ago, I was playing a game called Vampire The Masquerade with friends and needed a vampire name for the character I was playing. I thought of this MTG card "Krovikan Vampire" that I always wanted to make a good strategy with; however, couldn't and thought that Krovikan is a good name. I've been using it as handling, and whenever I use it somewhere new, I always get people to mention how they like it. Based on your video, it's a terrible name, as I can't dominate SEO though, my YT channel is on the third page of google, so might as well not exist.
I started using the name Klayton as a gamertag name because back in the mid to late 2000's I was a very big fan of the Industrial/Rock band called Celldweller & the frontman of that band is named Klayton. Some odd years after I started going by Klayton was also around the time I was introduced to the local goth scene (I DJ under a different name as I keep my DJ & Gaming tag separate) & online I also joined a Role Play forum where it was encouraged that all RP characters had a first/last name. I went with Calix because I was looking for a name that fit the things I was really into at the time, the Goth scene, music, gaming. Calix was a name I picked when I was looking up male goth names/nicknames. I've gone by Klayton Calix ever since & it made sense to me to stick with that when I started streaming because my real name is wayyyyyy to common.
I made "isocuda" back in 2003 and intentionally keep it all lowercase. (the word isotope from my high school textbook + a Plymouth Barracuda that was on a magazine nearby.)
I literally did it because I hated having numbers or symbols in a screen name AND I wanted something nobody else would have. I've never had to worry about my name, but I just passed the SEO check with flying colors haha.
(It has sentimental value now, but most people will refer to me as "iso" casually or by my actual name, so I'm curious if that falls into the syllable rule because I don't mind people truncating it?)
Big rotary engine guy here, Owned every generation of mazda RX7 and currently a RX8. thought Rotomon sounded cooler than Rotary man
I love rain and I love autumn and my paintings often include elements of runny paint as if color washed down by rain. My name is made up of two words Esen (Autumn in Bulgarian - a language dear to me and a country I love and where I currently live) and Ame (Rain in Japanese - my other big love). Originally when I tested the name it had proper spelling - Esename, but was mostly mispronounced by english speakers or pronounced sounding more like Ezenami (similar to creator deities Izanagi / Izanami) It was available everywhere so I stuck with it. But recently instagram disabled my account for no reason so I lost it there and now contemplating changing it completely especially since I'm just starting to grow my social media
My real full name is "Alexander Shirtcliffe"
The problem was that 'alex' was super common, and most people would squint at me when I'd say 'shirtcliffe' cause it just sounds weird. So I shortened it, "Xander" is a really cool-sounding name that only like 2 celebrities are called (Xander Armstrong & Xander Cage). Also I cut the 'shirt' and added the j from my middle name. "Xander J Cliffe" I think it strikes the exact balance of basically being my real name while still being detached enough to be a 'stage name'
SEO is an issue for me, yeah... but I've never found anything more suiting, or just the attachment I've gotten to mine.
This video resonates with me a ton I remember when I was 12 coming up with a name and I found my real name with something else would be better (had no clue about anything about brands) this makes me feel good about mine
SassyFPS
Very important topic, stoked to see a video about it!
I happened into a brand based on my gamer user name and it's turned out to be not ideal.
My name is fairly unique, easy to pronounce for English speakers, but it's spelled weirdly, and it's hard to manage for international audience.
My content could go towards a Korean audience in the future, so ideally I'd like to change it to something that is easy to spell and say in both English and Korean. Something that would make sense for all the reasons in this video, but also make sense in Korean.
It narrows options down but I think that will help me to pick something unique.
Spending a few thousand bucks for creating/developing a brand name when you're starting is a long stretch. If you can't come up with a perfect brand name by yourself when you're starting, just change it later.
What do you think of the "0x-" prefix for web3 native creators? Thanks
Darthaggro stemmed from my WoW days, I always seemed to make enemies focus me, or I'd aggro them, as I played a Holy Priest healer role and the title of Darth derived from Star Wars title for dark lord. Over the years laziness and complacency is what keeps that edgy name around but if I were to rebrand I'd at least keep up with that dark, little bit of edgy, vibe but since I personally like being in support roles would like to hint that I'm not a bad person
The story behind my name actually has a triple meaning. I am Ser E Hero or SerEhero. I still don't know if to have all three words together or have them be separate.
As someone who desires to go into the entertainment business, as a VTuber, rapper, entertainer, I've always wanted to be a hero.
Ser E, pronounced in Spanish is "seré," which means "I will be".
This part highlights my Spanish heritage. Then when you add the English word "hero", the full meaning means
"I will be a hero", which is an affirmation for my life goal while highlighting my Spanish and English speaking backgrounds.
On top of that, I've read that Ser is a title given to knights and that's what my VTuber avatar will represent once it's done. So you've got Ser E which people can call me that for short.
Amy feedback would be appreciated
My name is 4 syllables and complicated to spell, I wish it was easier for the channel's sake haha.
My business behind the scenes is "Subspace" because I want to create tools and community for creators to grow and improve.
Great video, once again! Thank you for it. However, the real question that remains unanswered is: What build were you tinkering with on POB? 😅
CABBAGE BRAIN TAKE:
I just went with what felt natural and went with my real name. I'm a personality and my brand is myself, as I do many different things, and since I have had to learn how to attach my real name to my identity anyway(I was assigned a different name and gender at birth but I changed those) it wouldn't make much sense to also try to go under a pen name. I'm a writer and content creator and part of my journey has been learning how to live as Rebecca Loran so it made sense to me, and my goal is that when people hear my name in the wild they know exactly who they're talking about and the various types of content I make.
Ahoy there, I'm Captn_Toodlez. You can find me over on Twitch and here on RUclips.
Back when I was a kid I had a childhood nickname of "Toodlez" which was the name of a character from my favorite videogame series "Paper Mario."
In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year-Door late chapter 6, Mario and gang meets a posh Toad named "Toodles" on a train called the Excess Express.
When I was a kid, I LOVED TOADS. (My favorite characters in the Mario series.)
Due to this fact and my (real) name starting with a T and actually sounds similarly close to Toodles, I decided to take on the nickname, changing the "S" at the end to a "Z" and thus, Toodlez was born. The title "Captn" came along a lil later in life.
I came up with my user/brand name after I worked in the Cellular Service industry about a decade ago, a colleague and I became friends/business partners working as Small to Medium Business Specialists for the company, being that I was our first SMB Specialist and she came in under me for mentorship, we refered to eachother as Captain and Firstmate. Essentially Toodlez became Captn and so became CaptnToodlez.
My name has kind of been pulled from a few different areas and changed over time. Originally, my brand went by NoodleReaper. I had made this name to replace a generic Xbox generator gamertag "FeistyLemur". When I started streaming I just kept NoodleReaper seeing as how that was my gamer tag at the time. I liked the idea of "Noodle" because it was fun, a little wacky, and who doesn't love ramen? But obviously being a pretty common word it was hard to get accounts with that name. At the time "Reaper" seemed edgy and matched the car I had created in Rocket League that I named Reaper. After streaming for about a year or so, I decided I wanted to "grow up" and move beyond the reaper term. So I kept the Noodle and changed my name to "n00dlevision". A cross between Noodle and Television. I think this name was actually more clever than my current one. Unfortunately I was never really happy with the 0's instead of o's due to the name being taken in some places. So finally after another year or so, I decided to make another switch. I decided to take inspiration from the Spongebob Episode when he's in driving school and receives "Good Noodle" stars. I felt like this really combined a sense of fun and childlike nostalgia and entertainment. I kept the television concept at the end due to struggles getting account names consistent on every platform and also as a callback to the Noodle Television thing. Over all this time though, I've really just gone by "Noodle" or "Noods" among viewers/other content creators. After trying multiple names I've felt that this one has stuck the best. And also led to more viewer interaction with coming up with nicknames like "BadNoodle" or "GoodEnoughNoodle". I do have some other name ideas I've always held onto over time that I hope to use someday and actually like a little bit more (like my Discord username J4x which is a play off the name Jack -> J4ck -> J4x), but overall I've found the content I'm currently making doesn't really fit these other name ideas right now.
Also great video Devin. Been lurking on your videos for a couple years now and try to use them as learning exercises. For example, it really had been a while since I considered where my name came from but watching this video gave me the opportunity to run back through my history and analyze the changes I made.
My username is my childhood nickname, though SEO is tough
I've stuck with my name since 2016 so I've grown attached to it but also people just call me "Metro" or "Metty" a lot of the time so I've been tryna decide if I wanted to just switch my stuff to "Metty" if It'd be beneficial for branding mostly. I'm really stuck on the decision.
What do you think?
I think I chose a good name 😊
I was an escape artist as a baby, to solve this issue my parents would swaddle both me and my brother in blankets. I was "Taco Timmy" and he was "Bradley Burrito" I simply reworked the name to not be as "child-ish" per say
Launchpad is an old nickname and my channel is based on cooking, so LaunchpadCooks seemed like a pretty good way to go
My username and my branding comes from the 90s educational shows I watched growing up. I'm also a fan of rhyming schemes. So I wanted something that rolled off the tongue. As I started to look into what I was putting into my videos, I was inviting the viewers to come in and learn D&D with Me and it just stuck.
I chose this username because my real name is Nathan - and at the time, I was trying to start a new identity for myself online. I was bullied a lot in school so I started seeing "Nathan" as my IRL introverted side where I struggled to be myself. Online, I was the opposite of that - and so ThisIsntNath was born.
My parents decided to spell my first name in an uncommon way, so that's been great for branding
My little brother used to call me “Rara” because he couldn’t say my name “RobertKeith” and the nickname stuck. I have thought about creating another brand under “robertKeith” never know!
I sort of followed a similar process in coming up with my name. I wanted something that included part of my name so it is more personable but also that really flowed well. Also it happened to have great SEO.
This is fantastic work. Lots of info packedddddddd in
my name came from gaming with friends in PC Cafe's in 2001. I was on a hotstreak in CounterStrike (before the days of CSGO) and was dubbed "The Infernoman" because I was on fire/hot as hell. I have always used the name for the majority of my screen names...while it's a lot of syllables, The Infernoman DOES pop up on the front of google and it's everything I have (my socials and content pages) minus one random IMDB link
I thought of my username in 1st grade actually… I was brainstorming ways to make cool code-names out of all my friends names(starting with mine of course) so I took my name(Anthony), then added every other letter of my name(Atoy), and put my last name initial(K) and got AnthonyAtoyK!
That, however, did not work so smoothly for anyone else’s name in my friend group, so I was the only one that held on to it. I later ended up using this for my email, and most of my social media moving forward through the years. And then more recently, I rebranded and changed my username to AtoyK to simplify, and I think it sounds way better! (Ey-Toy-Kay)
It just occurred to me that "Beast" might not actually be Mr. Beast's actual last name and that he's just trying to get that SEO cred.
My username/future planned brand name is really interesting because it's got such a dumb origin story. Basically my brother wanted me to play with him and I wanted to sleep (we were kids). So he started telling this story about "Tawlney" (real first name is Paul). I loved this name ever since because of what the story was about (not telling yet), the fact that it's super unique short and has an easy to pronounce (sort of) name since it's just Tall Knee. Fitting since I'm relatively tall and I have knees. What can I say? I love it.
Lol I just stumbled upon music video and decided to name myself after it for some reason. I use different names though.
"Two syllables"
fuck
thanks for the video Devin, my username came with a statement from a "friend", at the time he said "only francisco could like a weird pokemon like bulbasaur", and as the meme goes "i took that personally"
also i when i was new on twitch i gave a twitch prime to PointCrow by accident, and he refused to read my former username "fjcalarge" its just my initials and last name put together, so rebranding was necessary
also lilypichu and pokimane have pokemon names even though they don't have pokemon as a large part of their brands so i rebranded without batting an eye
My name was given by a friend. He thought I was too serious about anything in life. He also told me I was realistic in my way of thinking. Here is how my name "Darrell" became "DAREALITYY"
Devin playing path of building while recording the video :)
First of all thanks Devin for another cool video. Always a pleasure to watch these cause I always learn something new. Also I often go back to these videos to watch it again. Really good stuff.
About my screen name. Well, had tons of them as growing up but my last one is the one that I feel comfy the most and I have no intention to change it. My first name is Igor but few years ago kids in my extended family circle started calling me Igi and it was cute so I kind of took that from them. Now my daughter calls me Igi all the time, instead of Dad lol. Since I am big when it comes to weight, I added FatBoy to it. I know it might sound weird some but I am OK with that and it's not bothering me. So, I go with FatBoyIgi and often joke about the short version of that goes FBI (first letters) lol.
I have no intention to go into any business or start a company so never thought deeper about it all. I did the google search in incognito mode and came up pretty good. All I have to do is continue using it and posting stuff on social media hehe.
16:08 I came up with my channel name by putting my IRL surname into an English to Chinese translator.
I'm of Chinese heritage, so I thought this would tie in well with who I am. Out came Zuchiy; so I ditched the 'y' for a second 'i' & here we are; 2 years later !
My brand name came with inspiration from Dutch EDM DJ Martin Garrix. His real name is Martijn Garritsen, but because that wouldn't work well for international audiences he made it more 'English' and accessible to everyone. I did a very similar thing when I was thinking of an online alias or brand name. As I am Dutch too I walked into the same problems as Garrix, so I decided to go for DezzNytes, which has really worked well for me so far. It's a unique name, follows the 2-3 syllable rule, easy to dominate SEO and people can shorten it easily to call me 'Dezz' which makes it more personal and could even be seen as a real personal name. All in all I like my name.
(the one downside, which is in itself also an upside, is that sometimes my name gets mistaken as a Deez Nuts joke, which I've learned to just own)
I'll be honest, when I read your name and saw the size of your comment I was strapping myself in for a long, elaborate Deez Nutz joke and I was ready. Glad to have gotten some good insight and I'm sure its an easy 'foot in the door' for a new viewer!
The dominate SEO thing is kinda not always like that since we got people like "Ninja"
My username is inspired by the GO in Pokémon GO (Originally also CS:GO). Jesper GO sounded dumb. GoJesper sounded like someone cheering me on (My IRL name is Jesper). That was an instant hit!
Thanks alot for the video, basically telling me I did everything right with my brand name :-)
- Cheers from Denmark!
My main requirements were 1) needed to be short and easy to remember, 2) I could get it on all socials 3) and hopefully meant something to me. i've always used a variant of Swapmeet (jswap, jswappy, swappy) but could not ever get them across all socials. Then I discovered that 5wappy was available and snagged it. It's not perfect; the 5 isn't super natural and some people call me FIVE-wappy instead of Swappy and some places don't let you start a name with a number, but overall I'm happy with it.
Thanks Devin,
quick context: i've always struggled to come up w a cool variation on my name bc j & g are so difficult.. so
first username: jg3n - my name is jacob and last name starts with "gen" so i just took the j and gen - 2 syllables, seems fine and all -- buuut the g in my name is actually pronounced as a hard "G" not a soft one.. so even tho i had that for 5+ years i kinda hated it since everyone pronounced it wrong..
second username : i switched to this very recently (~3 months ago maybe) - i actually really like genja.. i just don't like how it looks so I add 1 or 2 more a's (genjaa / genjaaa ) it seems to just sound and look better imo - and most of my friends call me by my last name so putting the gen in front kinda makes sense
Jay Cub your logo could be a blue wolf pup
My name is Benjamin, my favourite gaming franchise is metal gear solid. Hideo Kojima created metal gear so i chose Hideo Benjima cos I thought it would be a good conversation piece.
most variations of "moddey dhoo" were taken on all the important sites so I picked the closest thing 😂
my username was gotten from my friend making puns of my real name (albert) and then when he said albeadle i knew it was meant to be and took it and made it my username for everything