Resources · 6 min read

How to come up with a podcast name

Your name is the first thing a potential listener judges and the last thing you should agonise over for months. Here is a practical process for finding a name that is clear, searchable and still available, without losing weeks to a blank page.

What makes a good podcast name?

Three things: it tells strangers what the show is about, it is easy to say out loud, and it is easy to find when someone types it into an app. That is the whole brief. Clever names that need explaining fail the first test, tongue-twisters fail the second, and names built from common words fail the third by drowning in search results. The best names pass all three while still sounding like you. "The Diary of a CEO" is not poetry, but you know what it is, you can say it to a friend, and you can find it in two seconds. Aim for that standard before you aim for wit.

Should your podcast name describe the topic or the personality?

If you are unknown, describe the topic. Search is how new shows get discovered, and a name containing your subject gives every episode a head start in app search results. A show called "London Property Explained" will surface for people searching those words; a show called "Bricks and Banter" will not, however charming it sounds at the pub. If you already have an audience that follows you by name, the calculation flips: your name is the search term, so put it in the title. Everyone else should treat personality as the seasoning, not the dish. You can always add a descriptive subtitle, and most apps display it, so "Bricks and Banter: London Property Explained" gets you both.

How do you actually generate name ideas?

Volume first, judgement later. Set a timer for twenty minutes and write fifty candidates without stopping to evaluate any of them. Pull from four wells: the words your ideal listener would type into search, the phrases you say constantly when talking about your subject, the format of the show itself (interviews, diaries, debates), and the feeling you want listeners to leave with. Mash combinations together, steal structures from shows you admire in unrelated genres, and keep going past the point where it feels silly, because the usable ideas usually arrive after the obvious ones run out. Then leave the list overnight. The candidates that still look good in the morning go to the testing round.

How do you test a podcast name before committing?

Say it out loud, because podcasting is a spoken medium and your name will be said thousands of times, by you in every intro and by listeners recommending you. If it makes you cringe or stumble by the tenth repetition, cut it. Then run the tell-a-friend test: say the name once to someone, wait a day, and ask them to find the show. If they misspell it, mishear it or cannot remember it, that is real listener behaviour you are watching. Finally, check length. Apps truncate long titles in lists and on small screens, so keep the name itself around 29 characters or fewer and put anything longer in the subtitle.

How do you check a podcast name is available?

Before you fall in love, spend ten minutes checking. Search the name in Apple Podcasts and Spotify to see whether an active show already uses it or something confusingly close. Search Google with the word podcast attached. Check whether a sensible domain is available, and whether the handle is free on the one or two social platforms you will actually use. Perfection is not required, plenty of shows thrive without an exact-match domain, but launching with the same name as an established show in your own genre is a genuine problem, both for discovery and potentially for trademarks. If a business will be built on the show, a quick trademark search in your country is cheap insurance.

What mistakes should you avoid when naming a podcast?

Puns that need the joke explained. Made-up words nobody can spell. Names that box you in, like naming the show after a year, a niche you might outgrow or a co-host who might leave. Keyword-stuffed titles that read like a search query, which app stores increasingly penalise. And the biggest one: waiting. A decent name attached to a published show beats a perfect name attached to a document of ideas, and you can rename later. Shows rebrand successfully all the time, and your first fifty listeners will follow you through it. Our guide to what starting a podcast really costs makes the same point about gear: momentum matters more than perfection.

When should you lock the name in?

Once a candidate passes the say-it-out-loud test, the tell-a-friend test and the availability check, stop looking. Register the domain and handles the same day, write the subtitle, and move your energy to the thing that actually determines whether people stay: the first episodes. A great name gets a stranger to tap once; the sound and substance of the show does everything after that. If you want those first episodes to sound like a show people trust, recording in a treated room with an engineer makes a bigger difference than any name will, and our studio handles the technical side so you can focus on saying your new name proudly into a proper microphone.

The short version

Write fifty names fast, sleep on them, and test the survivors by saying them aloud and asking a friend to find the show a day later. Prefer clear and searchable over clever, keep it short enough to survive truncation, check apps and domains before committing, and then commit. The name only has to be good enough to start; the show makes it famous, not the other way round. Once it is locked in, our full guide on how to start a podcast walks you through every step that comes next.