DIRE need of help with new shop name.

Looking up fragrance terminology. "Headspace" is a fragrance term but sounds like drugs. Cool word but I don't think it'll work.

 

None of the words I'm coming up with are working at all! Can someone who's better at abstract thought than me help me with words here?

 

Considering "Princet". It's a nice word. But will people spell it Princette or pronounce it wrong?

 

does it matter if they pronounce it wrong? it's an internet shop, most people are going to be communicating via text, and if they mispronounce it i imagine they'll still be able to refer people.
princet is a pretty straightforward word and it's going to be shown in its proper spelling all over your shop, i think you're borrowing worry.

 

Everywhere I've seen says that shop names should be easy to both pronounce and spell, and I wanted to be sure.

 

princet is a pretty simple word, i think you're good.

 

Also my parents have a tendency to laugh at quirky stuff I do or say and I know they don't mean it badly but it hurts and I don't want them to tell me what I picked is weird :( They already don't want me to be doing the shop at all.

 

okay, but you've passed over a lot of names, and it feels like every time someone tries to help you decide, you come up with new reasons xyz thing won't work. no name is going to meet all of these criteria.
a name that won't make your parents laugh isn't going to be eyecatching, an eyecatching name is going to make your parents laugh...do you see what i mean?

you said this was dire, i think you're going to need to just go ahead and pick one or else you're going to agonize over a hypothetical perfect name forever.

 

I know! But I don't know what other people will think is eyecatching! I just... I can't do the kind of abstract thought needed for that.

 

why would princet not work? it’s short, eyecatching, memorable...

 

Marketing has a lot to do with psychology, which you already know. But I think you're getting caught up on intricacies that don't matter all that much in the long term -"what if people can't spell this six-letter word?" (give people a bit more credit than that), "what if somebody somewhere thinks it's stupid?" (then that person might not buy from you, but that's OKAY, you are never going to please everyone with the name alone, word of mouth might change their mind, and if not, that's fine), "what if my parents laugh at me?" (that sucks, but are they your target audience?). The entire reason marketing's a thing in the first place is because to some degree we all share a common psychology of what kinds of words/colours/shapes we find memorable, pleasant, unpleasant, etc. In general. I mean, nobody's going to like or remember exactly the same things, and I think it's a mistake to try and please everyone ever.

Unless you're one of these 'immune to marketing' people, just go by something you like that fits the theme, and you're bound to please some people at least.

 

:( I knowwww... Came up with a great one and it's been used already. Blah.

I think I am "immune to marketing" in a way. I impulse buy stuff based on what the thing is, not on the ads... Makes it super hard to do this.

 

Marketing's more than ads, though. It's packaging, names, brand names, descriptions, etc.

What was the great name? Is there any way you could change it around a bit so it's still the same words you like, but differs from the thing it's already being used for?

 

Sable Sugar, but it's already the username of an obnoxious Tumblr user who apparently vandalised a Wiki and I really don't want to be associated with her.

Those sort of pass me by too. I've been criticised in writing for giving very straightforward "this happens" summaries/blurbs, but in my mind either what happens is interesting enough for me to read the book or it isn't. For my own stuff I can do the product names because I build the scent around the theme, and I can deal with the packaging because I know what I want the theme to look like.

 

Pity, it's a good name. What about "Sweet Sable" or "Sable Syrup" instead?

 

Ooh, maybe! Worried for a bit that "sugar" and its synonyms are too feminine when I'm trying to go for a gender-neutral theme but the kind of guy who'd buy these things probably doesn't care about that, right?

 

No, they won't :)

 

And I was ruling out a lot of words on the grounds of them being too negative, but since there are indie beauty shops named My Pretty Zombie, Comet Vomit, and Smelly Yeti, I guess that's not such a big deal, right?

I sort of want to go with a modification of a song title, but copyright issues. This is my problem, I can come up with endless usernames based on things that exist already, but not original ones.

 

i iike sable syrip, for reference - i think you should just go for it

 

I have a pretty strong image in my head of the logo being typographical and I'm wondering if I should just go with one word for stronger impact. Maybe just Sable Scents?