Choosing a yoga studio name is critical to your yoga brand.

I caution that when determining your yoga studio name ensure you do the necessary due diligence as part of your yoga business blueprint.  First off, choose a name that doesn’t conflict with other yoga studio names – especially locally.

The way to do this is to do a corporate search for your state or province. If you aren’t incorporating at the onset for whatever reason, the search will be useful because you may incorporate it down the road. It would be a shame to lose your yoga studio name once you’ve built name recognition.

Ways to name your yoga studio

1. Use your given name

You have a given name (i.e. Lisa Smith) and you can follow in the footsteps of lawyers and other professionals by titling your yoga studio with your name. If you’re well known (and liked) in your town, this is a good option.

Advantages to using your given name:

  • It’s unique and won’t be copied (at least in your town).
  • You can easily teach a variety of styles (not branded by style or niche audience).
  • If you become well known in the yoga community (as a teacher trainer, DVDs, books), then your popularity will transcend to your yoga studio (celebrity effect).
  • It’s easy to be consistent with the logo (your name) with your website, blog, books, DVDs, etc.

Disadvantages to using your given name:

  • It may be more difficult to sell (it’s your name after all) – studio continuity issue.
  • It doesn’t describe what type of yoga you do or where you teach it.
  • It may be difficult to bring on partners (they may want their name added – dilutes the brand).
  • Harder to attract students unless you are well-known (can alleviate this with good publicity).
  • Students may expect you (the name) to teach their class (if you have other teachers, this is an issue).

2. Geographic name

If you live in Kalamazoo, Michigan, call your studio the Kalamazoo Yoga Studio or Kalamazoo Power Yoga or any title incorporating your town / or region.

Advantages to naming your yoga studio by geography

  • It’s a great name within your community and for advertising locally (if you’re first to grab it).
  • It’s good for localized search engine results on the internet.
  • You can easily combine it with further distinguishing branding such as established style (Kalamazoo Iyengar) or name (Lisa Smith’s Kalamazoo Yoga Studio), or niche audience (Kalamazoo Kids Yoga)

Disadvantages to naming your yoga studio by geography

  • It’s restricted geographically.
  • If another studio uses the town name, it’s probably not a good idea if you use it also (first come, first served principle).

3. Name based on yoga style

If you focus on offering a particular style of yoga – name your studio on that style. For example, if you teach Astanga, you can name your local studio “Astanga Yoga”.

4. Create a unique yoga studio name

This is much like creating your own yoga style. However, you can teach general Hatha yoga styles or even a particular style and still name your studio with a unique name.

5. Combination approach to a yoga studio name

Combining names can be very good, but don’t combine too many so that you confuse your audience or make your name so long it sounds ridiculous.

Examples of good combinations:

  • Geographic with existing yoga style: Kalamazoo Iyengar Yoga,
  • Geographic with niche audience: Kalamazoo Back Injury Yoga Rehabilitation, and
  • Niche audience with unique yoga style: Unique Style Kids Yoga.

Examples of bad combinations:

  • Geographic with your own style: Kalamazoo Unique Style Yoga studio – it’s bad because you’re likely developing a new style for expansion. Geographic names restrict geographic expansion, and
  • Existing style with your unique style: very contradictory and mixed message to your audience.