Your 9-year-old has just spent forty minutes brainstorming names for their dog-walking business. The leading candidate, written across the top of their notebook in determined purple marker, is Doggy Doggy Wild Wild.
You smile. You ask: "What does it mean?"
They look at you the way a small CEO looks at someone who clearly doesn't understand the magic of a really good brand. "It just sounds cool, Mom."
Naming a kid business is one of the surprisingly hard parts of starting one — not because it matters that much in the end, but because the naming process is one of the first real strategic decisions your kid will make. The way you walk them through it sets up how they'll think about lots of business decisions later.
Here's how I'd handle it.
What a name is actually for
A business name does, broadly, two jobs.
It tells people what the business is (or at least gives them a hint).
And it tells people who the business is for.
That's the entire framework. You don't need an MBA. You don't need a branding consultant. You need a name that, when a stranger hears it, communicates at least one of those two things.
Doggy Doggy Wild Wild — bless it — communicates neither. It doesn't say dogs are walked. It doesn't say who the service is for. It just sounds cool, which is a real thing in your kid's brain, but doesn't tell potential customers anything actionable.
Compare to Lily's Dog Walks. Boring? Yes. Effective? Also yes. A stranger reading it on a flyer immediately knows: someone named Lily walks dogs. Done. The whole job of the name, complete in three words.
This is the conversation to have with your kid — gently.
The three tests
Here's a simple set of tests you can run with your kid for any name they're considering. Walk through them out loud.
Test 1 — The Grandma Test. If your kid told their Grandma the name of the business, would Grandma immediately know what the business does? If yes, the name passes. If Grandma would have to ask, "Wait, what is that exactly?" — the name has a problem.
Test 2 — The Flyer Test. Imagine the name printed on a flyer left in a neighbor's mailbox. Would the neighbor — who has never met your kid — understand what's being offered? If they have to read three paragraphs of explanation to get it, the name is doing too little work.
Test 3 — The Repeat Test. Can your kid say the name out loud to a customer without feeling weird? "Hi, I'm Charlie, and I run Doggy Doggy Wild Wild" might be a tough sell on a Saturday morning when the neighbor is in their pajamas. Most kids don't anticipate this discomfort, but it shows up the first time they try to actually use the name with a real human.
A good name passes at least two of three. A great name passes all three.
The three families of kid-business names
Most kid-business names fall into one of three categories. They each have a use.
Personal names. Charlie's Lawn Care. Sofia's Plant Kits. Theo's Tech Help. These are clean, clear, and slightly old-fashioned in a way that grandparents and most adult customers find reassuring. The downside: they don't scale well if the kid wants to grow the business or bring in a partner. For a 9-year-old's first business, that downside doesn't matter. Personal names are the safe, smart default.
Descriptive names. Fast Dog Walks. Sparkle Slime. Sunshine Babysitting. These tell you exactly what's on offer. They work well for businesses where the product is the main thing, not the kid. The downside: they're often less memorable, and they're easier to compete with (because anyone can also call themselves Sparkle Slime).
Cute names. Doggy Doggy Wild Wild and its many cousins. Sometimes these work — if the audience is other kids who are charmed by the energy. Mostly they don't, because adult customers (who are the ones with the money) want a name that signals competence, not whimsy. The cute name is almost always the name your kid wants, and almost never the name that gets the most customers.
How to walk them through the choice
The temptation, as a parent, is to just tell your kid which name to pick. Resist it. The naming process is one of the few moments where they get to think strategically about how they're presenting themselves to the world, and that thinking is the actual lesson.
Try:
"Cool, you've got six names. Let's go through each one and see how it does on three tests."
Walk through the three tests for each name. Be honest. When Doggy Doggy Wild Wild fails the Grandma Test, name it: "Yeah, I don't think Grandma would know what that business does." When Charlie's Dog Walks passes all three, name that too: "That one tells someone everything they need to know in three words."
Then, crucially:
"It's your business. You pick. The three tests are just to help you see which name does the best job."
Most kids, given the framework, will pick the name that does the best job — even if it's slightly less fun than their original favorite. Some won't. Some will pick Doggy Doggy Wild Wild anyway, and that's also fine. They learned something either way: that naming involves trade-offs, that "what sounds cool to me" isn't always "what works for customers," and that there's a real strategy underneath the fun.
When the name doesn't really matter
Here's the honest closer. For a kid running a small local business that serves a few neighbors over one summer, the name barely matters. Customers come because of the kid, not the brand. Most customers won't even remember the name a month later.
The name matters because the naming exercise matters. Your kid has just spent an hour thinking about what their business is, who it's for, and how to communicate that in three words. That hour is the lesson. The name is the byproduct.
Whatever they pick, embroider it on a sign with enthusiasm. Doggy Doggy Wild Wild on a piece of cardboard, taped to a clipboard, in the hands of a 9-year-old knocking on a neighbor's door? That'll work just fine.