1. Is the web domain taken for your required name? If so don’t use it. If you become successful under this name a lot of traffic will be going to this web domain instead of your own. If you don’t own it and do become famous chances are this web domain will have a price tag upwards of £10k, which you or your label may need to buy out.
2. Your name is going to be put on flyers so don’t call yourself Dj Weed or Dj Gun Tingz etc. Chances are a night will not book a Dj that’s name is associated with violence or drugs.
3. Is anyone else using this name? You don’t want to start using someone else’s chosen name even if you feel they are not successful enough to challenge you. If your required name is taken by someone else try and contact them and ask if they are still using this name. Even if they are not using the name its still best to choose a different name to avoid being associated with said artist and linking their previous releases to yours.
4. Always use the correct spelling. This is for many reasons. The main reason being that your fans, when searching for your latest track on download stores and need to be able to spell your name to find you.
5. Choose a name for search engine results. Think about your name in a way that it’ll show up in search engine results. For instance our name will show up for most audio related searches as it uses the word audio in it. This way we are able to show up for wider search terms and not only Audio Animals.
6. Think to the future. I read an interview with dj fresh years back when he started to become commercially famous as a house hold name. He was asked if there was anything he’d change and his reply was he’d change the name dj fresh. It’s important to get your name right from the get go so there are no regrets later on.
7. Listing on download stores as well as many other listings are often alphabetical meaning if your name is zero you’ll be listed towards the end. A name beginning with A will be listed at the beginning of an alphabetical search.
8. Avoid putting dj in front of your name as in listings you will be in with a sea of other artists called dj something or other. You want to stand out and not get lost in with the others.
9. Does your real name work as an artist name. Often it does. This will also mean such media pages as facebook can be used for your music as it is a real name. Facebook are clamping down now on artists names being used for personal pages and are forcing users to turn their personal pages into like pages or change your personal page to your real name.
10. Branding is incredibly important. Try and tie your chosen name in with good branding. Choose a catchy name that is memorable and rolls off the tongue easily.
