In this post, I’ll be explaining how I landed on the name Split Leaf Marketing! From the beginning brainstorm stages, to figuratively banging my head against my desk, to the refinement towards the end, below is my experience with coming up with a name and brand for my site.
All I started with was a general idea: I wanted to come up with a name that was meaningful to me while also relating to some aspect of marketing. Truth be told, this turned out to be a bit more difficult than I expected it to be!
The Process
At first, I struggled to come up with a name that wasn’t already taken. I would think of a potential name, immediately type it into google on my phone or laptop, and just as quickly end up at the beginning again with close to nothing. I love alliteration, so one night I went as far as reading through all the words for a few letters in the dictionary from our bookshelves. That process didn’t end up being as inspiring as I wanted it to be and didn’t help much, but I did learn a few words along the way! I decided to leave that strategy behind and continued with organic brainstorming instead.
After a few days of thinking, and thinking, and continuing to think of a name, I was starting to stress myself out. So, I brought in reinforcements: my mom and my boyfriend. While they did come up with some good ideas, they didn’t have much of a personal meaning to me, and I soon realized that the name was something I would have to come up with on my own.
An Unexpected Breakthrough
About a week after I started thinking about a name, I started looking around our apartment to try to find some inspiration. Mind you, this was in the beginning of April 2020 – I had been working from home and self-isolating/social distancing with my boyfriend and our dog since the beginning of March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I immediately thought of a few things that I had been focusing on in my free time: plants, fitness, and video games.
I already knew that most plant names I had considered were taking by marketing firms or other companies, and I knew if anything I’d want to create a separate blog for fitness at some point, so I started thinking about the most recent video game I had played: Animal Crossing New Horizons. The game had just been released by Nintendo on the Nintendo Switch a couple weeks prior. I knew that I didn’t want the name of my blog to be closely tied to the game, so I kept running through ideas in my mind and kept looking around my apartment. Eventually, the name of the Nintendo 3DS Animal Crossing game came to mind: New Leaf.
For some reason, this made me start thinking of different kinds of plants and their leaves, and suddenly Split Leaf popped up like a blinking neon light in my mind. The more I considered the name, the more I liked it. When I searched the name and the domain name, it was available – so, being who I am, I continued to think about it some more so as not to jump to an immediate conclusion. I wanted it to be right for me!
The Final Decision
I thought about Split Leaf for three days. It aligned with my love for houseplants (and, really, all plants) and reminds me that growth is a process and something that takes patience and nurturing. If you’ve ever had to wait for a plant to unfurl a new leaf, you know what I mean! I also liked the visual – the leaves of a split leaf philodendron (otherwise known as the popular monstera deliciosa or Swiss cheese plant) break into sections or look like they have interwoven connections, and I feel that that itself is a big part of marketing. I’ll go more into that idea in a different blog post! In relation to the visual aspect, I also knew I would be able to create a brand around a split leaf motif and was excited to start with the creative process.
I felt a wave of relief crash over me – I had found the name! I made one final edit: I added the word Marketing to the end, because I wanted my blog and site overall to be career focused, and wanted the name to reflect that. After presenting the almost-official name to loved ones for feedback (they loved it!), and after treating myself to a piece of dark chocolate and a glass of wine, Split Leaf Marketing was born!
Final Thoughts
I hope that this post was able to give you some insight into the naming process for my blog. At the end of the day, all that matters to me is what mattered at the very beginning: That the name is meaningful to me and relevant to the content I’ll be publishing. In my mind, those two things are what matter most and I’m glad I was able to stay true to myself and my ideas during this process. It was definitely a learning curve, but I’m thankful for the experience!
Split Leaf Marketing 