The Do's and Don'ts of Naming Your Food Truck

What is in a food truck name? Some will say it can mean the difference between success and failure. As a culinary entrepreneur, naming your food truck is an important, critical step and sorting through potential names can be a long and tedious process.

When trying to come up with just the right name for your mobile food business, the options can be overwhelming.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Naming Your Food Truck

The following tips are designed to help narrow the potential field and make your choice a little easier:

THE DO’s OF NAMING YOUR FOOD TRUCK

Consider making the name descriptive, so that potential customers are immediately informed of the menu items on your truck. Research has shown that businesses with names that identify their products or services are more successful than non-descriptively named businesses.
Keep the description general enough so that you can, if desired, expand your menu in the future.
Make it memorable. Tell ten people the name you are considering. A week later, connect with them again and ask them to recall that name. How many people were able to accurately remember it? If it was less than seven, you may want to consider other more memorable alternatives that truly grab people’s attention.
Make it phonetic. Crazy food truck names and quirky misspellings have become quite a trend, but it’s frustrating for consumers. No one wants to have to spell out the name of a business every time they talk about it. Make your mobile food business name phonetic so that people will be able to Google it from hearing it out loud
Consider the oral impact of the name. How it will sound when spoken? Try writing down a list of words that could describe your food truck business, then mixing them up into different combinations and saying them out loud to see how they sound.
Consider the visual impact of the name. How it will look on the truck itself, the internet (your website, social media sites), advertisements, business cards, etc. As with the sound of the words, try playing around with various looks by writing them down on paper or typing them into your computer.
Choose a name that is easy to understand, pronounce, and remember.
Make the name unique enough to distinguish your food truck from others on the street.
Choose a name that will not be easily imitated by competitors.
Consider how the business name could be shortened by the public. Just as a child’s initials can spell out an embarrassing word, so could the abbreviation for a business.
Come up with a list of several potential names, and then try them out on close friends and family members to get their reactions.
Live with your ideas for a while, to see how they sound and feel with the passage of time.
Keep alternatives in mind, in the event that further research reveals that the name you would like to use is not available.

THE DON’Ts OF NAMING YOUR FOOD TRUCK

DO NOT name your roaming bistro too soon. It’s exciting to name your food truck, but it’s more important to get it right. Take your time.
DON’T select a name that is too long or confusing.
DON’T choose a trendy name, since trends and fads pass quickly, and you don’t want your business to appear outdated.
DO NOT include unacceptable terms in the name, like profanity or obscenities.
DON’T use initials. JWT could be grain and feed store, or it could be a famous advertising agency. It has no meaning. Business names that use initials are less memorable.
DON’T get sued over sloppy seconds. In the naming stage, you do not want to select a name for your food truck that you may have to change later or, even worse, get sued for, because someone else has a registered trademark on the word or phrase. This can be easily be avoided by visiting the federal patent and trademark office’s site, USPTO.gov, and doing a search on any potential names.

Still having a tough time coming up with a name, check our our free Food truck Name Generator to see if it can give you some suggestions. <here>

Do you have any additional tips for naming your food truck? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section, our food truck forum or social media. Twitter | Facebook