So you want to start a food blog
You’ve thought about it for a long time. You’ve been perfecting your iPhone shots of quotidian meals. You’re just about ready to take the leap and birth food blog #6,558,931 into the world. Good for you. Before you buy the domain and commit to the Facebook-Twitter-Pinterest-Instagram-Google+-Foodspotting-Gojee handles, you need to know that the following words cannot be used in a new food blog name. Why? Because I said so, that’s why. And because everyone else has already used them already.
Food. C’mon. It displays a poverty of imagination to invoke the very core concept into the name. Think outside the CSA box, already.
Cooking. Especially if followed by “with” and then your name or “in” and your location. Or worse, both. You cook. We get it.
Recipes. Fine in the tagline. Leave it out of the name.
Kitchen. Sorry, played out. Try making food in a different room.
Girl. Recipe Girl. Gluten-Free Girl. Sodium Girl. Lotta girls out there, and they’ve all got a lot of headway on you. Flip side: Good news, gents. “Boy” is practically unused. Knock yourself out.
What [you] Ate. I suppose it’s better than blogging about what happened at the other end of the alimentary tract. Just the same, I’d be surprised if someone with your name isn’t already blogging about what they put in their mouth.
Musings. To be fair, I feel like this word trended much more a few years ago, but there’s no reason to bring it back. Flip side: How come “noodling” never took off as a word in blog names?
Any two random ingredients or foodstuffs. Connected by “and” or otherwise. Unless all the recipes on your blog only use those two things.
Yummy, nummy, nom, delicious. All of it. If you have to say so, it’s suspect.
Chef. Unless you really are one. Like in a restaurant.
Thyme. Only when used punnishly in lieu of “time.” Otherwise it’s fine. Likewise “fork” when used for … well, you know.
Now, I can name multiple examples of perfectly successful blogs whose names break these rules. That’s because when they launched, none of these things was cliché. They were trailblazers. To stand out, you need to be different. Be funny. Be personal. Be original.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go post on my other blog, Kitchen Girl’s Forking Food Musings and Yummy Recipe Thyme.
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Can we add “dinner” to the list? 🙂
I’m not a food person, but I’m a word person. Obviously, so are you. Love your style. It’s quite compatible with what I recommend on my blog: http://textcpr.blogspot.com
Thanks for the smiles.
I.love.this.
Thankfully, mine is a bona fide chef otherwise I would be guilty in all fronts.
Excellent piece…
Love your disclaimer at the end! Also love the graphics at the beginning.
May I add one to the list? “Eats.”
Are people really starting new food blogs?
Definitely. 🙂
Thanks!
Yeah, I almost added that one, too. And yes, believe it or not, it’s still a thing.
This is genius. Thank you for the deep insight. Hope the new bloggers heed your advice and get inspired to get original.
To thoroughly trash my blog name, you should have included “local.” Besides: it’s taken. By me (and every small-town kitchen retailer in the nation). 🙂
Hilarious! Because it’s what we all went through/go through when choosing a name for a new blog. And of course worry we did the wrong thing once we’ve chosen anyway.
i would LOVE to add LOVE to this list! coffee LOVE, food LOVE, pantry LOVE. ugh. so, so bad…
Someone had to draw the line! This is terrific, Sean.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that everyone DOESN’T have a food blog by now.
Local is surprisingly safe. Maybe you should change your name to Local Pantry. Or Local Antechamber.
They don’t?
Ah! Agreed. Love is an overused word in almost all circumstances — unless you are directing it to an individual with specific meaning.
Oh no, I broke your rule! Do you forgive me, since I started my blog in 2010?
Lol love this! Phew I am in the clear.
Great list and is so true! It was tough coming up with a blog name, especially when there are so many similar blog names that get a lot of traction.
Pure awesomeness. Mine’s been so non-cliche nobody gets it. You think it’s too late to borrow “Forkings” to string on the end of mine?
And I thought Kalyn’s Kitchen was so original when I picked it in 2005!
You get a pass. This only applies to new blogs. 🙂
Sass and Forking Veracity. I like it.
Pretty sure it was! Likewise Cooking With Amy, Vanilla Garlic, Gluten-Free Girl, Simply Recipes and the like. But now, not so much.
I think I’m safe. . .
Loved this!
I would add “Fresh” to the list, too.
And the “two random ingredients/foodstuffs” thing always annoys me. Chocolate and Zucchini was original. After that, forget it!
I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of your post and then laughed. Thanks for your wit & wisdom! Next topic for fodder… emoticons. 😉
I would like to add two nouns you know a vegetable, and a non vegetable, its was creative a few times. I might need to buy the domain peppermint cucumber very soon.
So tempting…:D
Kalyn, I was scrolling through comments and planning on leaving one to say that you and I were the only one’s with “kitchen” way back then. In my case it is a designator of the type of magic user I am not necessarily where the magic happens…
In general, it will be interesting to see how names age over the years. I suspect some will do so better than others. One of the biggish mom bloggers just announced she is dumping her current ‘nym entirely and is now “someone else” — which would work better had she not gotten a tattoo of her blog name. (yes really)
Diane, almost everyone does!! I feel like an old lady blogger already! (Blogging since’ 08 😉
Hahahahaha – ROFTL. I have long said when I speak at conferences that I will never follow any blog that includes the words “random” or “musings” in its title or tagline! Brilliant post – thanks for the laugh!
Remember when I used to write a food blog? If I started one now, I would call it either “Pistil Pete’s Wacky Gastronomical Vestibule” or “Oh God, it burns.”
I think “Aftertaste” would be a great name.
Phew I think I’m in the clear too, although my name “Marmaduke Scarlet” is the name of a chef – admittedly a fictional gnomish chef in a children’s fairy tale!