Issue 07
“Should I just use my name?”
It’s one of the first questions I hear from founders, designers, chefs, photographers, therapists. Almost everyone who builds something from themselves reaches this moment.
And it’s one of the hardest decisions to undo.
I know, because I made it myself. BIEQUS comes from my surname, Biegus. So this one is personal ↓
First, you need an identity, whatever the name
Before the name, there’s a bigger question: who are you, as a brand?
Not the logo. The feeling, the point of view, the way you work, the things you’d never do. That’s your identity, and you need it whether your brand is called after you or not.
Without it, a personal name is just a name, and a clever brand name is just a word. With it, either one can carry real weight.
Too many people choose the name first and hope the meaning will follow. It’s much easier the other way round.
Why your identity matters more than ever
We live in a time when people don’t just buy from brands. They buy from people. They want to know who’s behind the work, what they believe and why they do it.
This is especially true in creative work, wellness, fashion, hospitality and events: anywhere taste and trust matter.
Your identity is what makes you recognisable when everything else looks the same. It’s what lets someone feel your work before they see your name.
When your name works as the brand
Using your own name can be beautiful when:
You are the work. People come for your eye, your hands, your way of seeing.
Your relationships are personal. Clients want you, not a team.
You want to build a body of work over a lifetime, like an artist, a designer or an author.
Your name has a sound people remember, whether that’s because it’s easy or because it makes them stop.
There’s an honesty in it. You stand behind everything you make, quite literally.
And a name that’s hard to pronounce isn’t always a weakness. Hermès, Loewe, Aimé Leon Dore: people still pause before saying them, look them up and ask a friend. That small moment of curiosity makes them remember. The secret is that once they’ve learned it, it’s theirs, and they never forget it.
When a separate name works better
A brand name of its own often makes more sense when:
You want it to grow beyond you, with a team, more locations or more products.
You might want to sell it one day. A business with your name on it is much harder to hand over.
You want some privacy. A personal name means every review, every launch and every mistake is attached to you.
The idea is bigger than the person. Some brands are a world, a place or a feeling, not a face.
Names that show how it works
Some of the brands people love most made very different choices, and the stories behind their names are full of ideas.
Named after the founder
Jacquemus: Simon Porte Jacquemus’s own name. The brand feels like him: sunny, playful, deeply personal. You buy into his world as much as the clothes.
Bode: Emily Adams Bode’s surname. Every piece feels made by one person’s hands and memories, so her name on it makes complete sense.
Tom Ford: a name that became a standard of taste. It works because he is the point of view.
Built from the founder’s own story
Aimé Leon Dore: Teddy Santis first wanted to call it Aimé, French for “loved”. That was too broad a word to trademark, so he and his wife built a new name from three parts: Aimé, Leon (his father’s nickname) and Dore (from his own first name, Theodore). It sounds like a person, but it’s really a family story hidden in plain sight.
Adidas: the founder’s nickname and surname, joined together. Adolf Dassler was known as Adi, and Adi + Dassler became Adidas. It’s completely personal, yet it never feels like a person’s name. It feels like a world.
Rimowa: the founder’s name, hidden inside a new word. It’s built from RIchard MOrszeck WArenzeichen, German for “Richard Morszeck trademark”. What sounds like a modern, invented name is really a family signature from the 1930s, and it’s proof that a personal name can become timeless if you shape it well.
A name with its own meaning
Kith: founded by Ronnie Fieg, and named after the old English phrase kith and kin. “Kin” is your family, and “kith” is your friends, your people, the ones you know. So the name literally means your circle. It’s about community, not one person, which is exactly why it could grow into a global world.
Aesop: founded by Dennis Paphitis and named after the ancient storyteller, so the brand is about ideas, stories and ritual rather than a face.
Byredo: founded by Ben Gorham. The name is a blend of by redolence, an old word for scent and the memories it brings back. One invented word holds the whole idea of the brand.
Named after a place
The Row: created by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who deliberately didn’t use their famous name. It’s named after Savile Row, London’s street of master tailors. They chose quiet credibility over fame.
Soho House: named after London’s Soho, where Nick Jones opened the first house in 1995. The name carries the energy of one neighbourhood to every city it goes to.
Modern names
Open: a meditation and breathwork app named after a state of being. It doesn’t describe what the app does. It names how you’ll feel when you use it.
Strava: the fitness app’s name is Swedish for to strive. One short, foreign word carries the whole attitude of the brand.
Airbnb: started as AirBed & Breakfast, literally air mattresses on a floor. The name was shortened as the idea grew, which shows a name can evolve with the brand.
Cadence: the travel and beauty brand founded by Steph Hon, which makes refillable capsules for your daily routine. A cadence is a rhythm, the steady beat of something that repeats. It’s a fitting word for a brand built around the rituals you carry with you every day.
Represent: founded in 2011 by brothers George and Michael Heaton, who started it near Manchester while George was still studying graphic design. The name is a single verb, and a statement: to represent is to stand for something, where you come from and who you are. It turns wearing the clothes into an act of identity.
247: Represent’s performance line. The name is three numbers that say everything: always on, for every part of the day. Represent describes it as constant, forever and for all use. It proves a name doesn’t even need letters to hold an idea.
Platform names
Highsnobiety: started as a blog by David Fischer in 2005. The name is a twist on high society, with a wink at being a little snobbish about taste. It’s playful, clever, and it tells you exactly who it’s for.
Hypebeast: founded by Kevin Ma in the same year. It takes the slang for someone obsessed with hype and wears it proudly. It’s bold, self-aware and impossible to forget.
Instagram: instant camera + telegram. Two old-fashioned words joined into something completely new, which shows nostalgia can feel modern.
Pinterest: pin + interest. The name explains the whole idea in one word: you pin what interests you.
Apartamento: a magazine founded in Barcelona and named after the Spanish word for apartment. It’s about real, lived-in homes, not perfect ones, and the name says that before you open the first page.
Kinfolk: an old word for your people, your family and friends. The magazine is about slow living and gathering, so the name is the feeling.
What they all share isn’t the type of name. It’s that each one has a very clear identity behind it. You know what Jacquemus feels like, and you know what Kith feels like. The name only works because the identity is strong.
The in-between, which is often the best answer
You don’t always have to choose.
Many of the brands I admire live somewhere in the middle: a name built from the founder’s story but shaped into its own thing, a studio name with the founder clearly visible behind it, or a personal name for the creative work alongside a separate name for the products or the place.
That’s what I did. BIEQUS STUDIO carries my name, Biegus, reshaped into something of its own. People often ask me how to say it, and I’ve come to love that moment. It isn’t just me, and it leaves room for collaborators, projects and platforms like this one. And Tomorrows Norm has its own name because it’s bigger than one person. It’s a space for a way of thinking.
If you’re naming your own brand, borrow their methods
Find an old word or phrase that holds your feeling, like Kith.
Name it after a place that means something, like The Row or Soho House.
Combine pieces of your family’s names, like Aimé Leon Dore.
Blend your nickname and surname, like Adidas.
Take the first letters of meaningful words and make a new one, like Rimowa.
Turn the essence of what you do into one invented word, like Byredo.
Name the feeling, not the thing, like Open or Cadence.
Borrow a word from another language, like Strava or Apartamento.
Choose a verb, a word that asks people to do or be something, like Represent.
Let numbers or symbols carry the idea, like 247.
Twist a familiar phrase, like Highsnobiety.
Join two words that each hold half the idea, like Instagram or Pinterest.
A small directory to help you decide
Ask yourself honestly:
In five years, do I want people to come for me, or for what I’ve built?
Would I be comfortable with my name on every review, good and bad?
Could this brand ever exist without me in the room?
Is my name easy to remember for someone who’s only heard it once? Or do I want to keep people curious about how to say it?
Does the name feel like the feeling I want to give people?
Picture your name next to the brands you admire. Does it belong to a person or to a world?
If most of your answers point to you, use your name proudly. If they point to something bigger, give it a name of its own, and let your identity live inside it.
Why this matters now
There are more founders, more creatives and more personal brands than ever. Names are everywhere.
What makes one stay with people isn’t whether it’s a surname or an invented word. It’s whether there’s a clear, honest identity behind it.
So build that first. The name will make much more sense once you know who it belongs to.
Kata
