I recently received an email from one of our community members who is creating her own dream business. She wanted to know how the name Don’t Tell Summer came about and how she could create a name for her business.
Names are so important, especially for an idea, dream or business you’re passionate about.
I can happily say that after five years (ok that just sounded like the beginning of an anniversary speech), I love the name Don’t Tell Summer more and more each day. The name continues to reveal more depth about itself, more meaning, more passion and more creativity than I ever originally sought out to create. As I grow, Don’t Tell Summer grows.
As I tell the story of how the Don’t Tell Summer name came about, I’ll give you a step-by-step guide on how you can create the heart-driven name for your dream or idea.
1. How does your idea feel?
Write down words that describe your idea, even if you don’t know the mission, purpose or what you want it to look like yet. You are cultivating an energy of something you want to create already, so tap into that energy.
When I knew that I wanted to start a blog I felt things like:
Freedom Adventure
Rebelliousness Doing what you love
Feminine Passion
Fearless Community
Fun Surf
I was able to sift through different name ideas and cross-out the ones that I knew weren’t right, because I knew exactly how the blog felt. I knew that the name would need to describe that energy.
2. Which comes first – the meaning behind it or the name?
For Don’t Tell Summer, it was a mixture of both, but the name came before I thought of the story behind it. As soon as the name came, I knew why.
If you think of the name first, meaning second:
A little background story,
I had been synchronistically traveling around with a group of surfers at the end of 2011. My friend and I had met them in San Francisco and when we went back home to Orange County, they too had to be down there. A week later, I was going to Hawaii for my Grandma’s 80th birthday and needless to say, they were going there also at the exact same time.
What intrigued me about them, well a lot did as you can imagine, but what sparked my curiosity was that they had a blog. I had never met anyone with a blog before and didn’t know much about it but after spending a couple weeks with them, I knew there was something that I was ready to create and it would start with a Tumblr account.
I could feel what the blog was about, the depth, the freedom, the rebelliousness, the feminine, fearless, fun of it. I just couldn’t figure out the name.
So I started writing down words that matched how I wanted it to feel. I was throwing around tons and tons of names over the course of a few days until I wrote the words “Don’t Tell”.
That hit a heart-string.
That felt so right on every level.
But Don’t tell what?
Don’t tell who?
I wanted it to be someone’s name, but yet I didn’t want it to be.
Summer popped in. That was it.
From there it all unfolded; everything – the story behind it, the energy. It all started to tell its own story and still does to this day.
Once I knew it was Don’t Tell Summer, the story came. The story of how I had been going back and forth between Sydney and California and kept missing summer because of the opposite seasons. They were the best ‘Summers’ of my life because I finally felt like I wasn’t waiting for something; waiting to feel free, to do what I would love to do and to be myself.
As the brand has evolved, the story and meaning behind it has evolved. If a name feels right in your heart, the story will come as to why you intuitively chose it.
If the story or meaning comes first:
Think of words that describe your story. You could include these words in the name of your concept or it could be a phrase that is more of a lifestyle capture of what your mission, purpose or idea entails.
In order to be at the point where you have an idea from your heart, you would’ve arrived to that from somewhere. Write out your story.
Write out why this idea is important to you and the world around you.
Why now? What had to have happened for you to get here?
3. The key is to not force it. Give it space to grow.
If you can feel the energy of your idea, it’s there. It’s already there waiting for you to find it and so you don’t need to come up with it the first time you sit down to write out name ideas.
I think it took me three or four days of actively writing out different names for the blog, continuing to do other things, and coming back to it to then finally arrive on the name Don’t Tell Summer.
When I created the #RadLivin festival it went through a couple different names over the course of a few weeks. I even wrote to sponsors and brought on speakers while not calling it #RadLivin just yet, and that’s ok.
When we give ourselves space, it allows for new creative ideas to come in. It’s important to continue to create your concept, even if there isn’t a name yet; it will come.
*Want some help coming up with a name for your blog, business or idea? Comment below and let’s get the ball rolling!
Photo credit: Shane Hood of Hood Imagery
