How to Name Your Newsletter

It’s easy to think about starting a newsletter.

You dream about the industry recognition you’ll get, the wave of paid subscribers whose monthly payments will be hockey-stick shaped—up and to the right, and all the clever things you will say about your area of expertise. But like most things, in practice, it’s a bit harder than that.

Probably one of the very first things someone looking to create a newsletter does is think about the name. On the one hand, a brand is what you make it, and “CostCo” or “Gatorade” aren’t inherently valuable words to build a brand on, but have been honed through marketing into something meaningful. On the other hand, you definitely want to give your brand and the domain name you build it on a bit more thought that the founders of Pen Island (penisland.com) gave theirs, for better or worse…

Strategy: Study Popular Newsletters

Might as well look at the naming conventions of popular newsletters to see what your options are.

The THE + KEYWORD Strategy.

There’s a lot of really high-quality, successful newsletter that use this tactic–and for good reason. You can only have ONE “The Something” name (and .com) to define a whole broad niche with the right keyword. Some popular newsletter publications using this strategy:

The Athletic
The Correspondent
The Hustle
The Ringer
The Information

Most are pretty straightforward, and you can probably guess what kind of content you’re going to be receiving if you sign up. Because this is one of the best strategies to name your newsletter, you can go ahead and bet that whatever name you think up has the .com most likely registered.

Your best bet to find a THE + KEYWORD domain name is to check domain auction sites like:

Or marketplaces like:

…but it’s not gonna be cheap, so let’s keep brainstorming!

Obvious Industry Phrases

Right up front, you’re going to have the same kind of problem as before, as anything that’s obviously a good fit will definitely be taken. But let’s explore some newsletters that use this strategy well.

Casual Spectator (sports terminology)
Cleaning the Glass (basketball terminology)
Input-Output (computing term)

If you had a coffee-focused newsletter you might name it “No Foam” or a gaming newsletter called “Mana” or “Hit Points.” Your best bet here is to Google “<industry> terminology” and then scroll through those definitions.

Another example: I saw a name expire the other day that would have made the most amazing football newsletter called “Wide Left” (wideleft.com). The domain name is currently for sale at under $1k — still a great deal.

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