The Freak Show would 100% NOT exist if it weren’t for a couple of people. And one of them, is Katie Pannell.
Besides being a naming expert (and literally the person behind EVERY SINGLE NAME of my brand world & theme), she’s the reason Flying Colours Creative® isn’t called "Eva Couto Design" anymore, a name I definitely panic-picked at 2am, and that had... *zero? personality.
So today we’re talking precisely about that:
Should you keep using my personal name… OOOR is it time for something bigger than me?
Not just because you’re seeing everyone online shift towards a brand name, but because the internet has changed. When personal branding first exploded, “behind the scenes” felt intimate & cool. Now? We’re overstimulated, trying to dramatically reduce our screen time, and “building in public” isn’t new anymore. Plus personal names (whether intentionally or not) trained audiences to expect access as part of the value exchange.
But more on that below:
Before we get into all things naming, Katie had to earn her freak badge, and she came prepared.
There's a shift happening, and it's not just a naming trend. It's bigger than that.
We're in the middle of the "analog movement": people are craving distance from the internet, buying Bricks, reinstalling landlines (well, at least Katie is), and picking up hobbies again.
This is showing up in branding too, specifically in the mass migration away from personal names as business names.
Katie says that personal names as business names have trained audiences to expect access as part of the value exchange. You sold them intimacy, but intimacy isn't a product. It doesn't have a price tag. And now you can't go dark on Instagram stories for three days without someone sliding into your DMs asking if you're okay.
That's EXHAUSTING!
So how do you know when it's time to make the switch? The first signal is when you start to resent the access your name gives people: when you're with your family and feel the pull to turn it into content, when you catch yourself fantasising about doing something privately, *without* it becoming a post.
A few other things worth considering:
So what does the shift actually look like in practice? Katie calls it "separation of self and service", and it's the thing a brand name actually gives you.
You can still be the face of your business. You can still have personality, show up, and build a personal brand. But the business becomes the container, not you. It gives you office hours and some of the privacy you've been hemorrhaging in the name of know-like-trust.
This doesn't mean going dark or becoming faceless. It means you get to curate. What the internet sees is intentional, not obligatory. And as Katie put it, oversharing doesn't automatically mean you're being authentic. It's just oversharing.
The personal name era capitalised on intimacy when intimacy felt novel. But now we all know the difference between a real person and a marketing strategy wearing a skin suit. And consumers (which means also you & me) are TIRED.
A brand theme isn't just something you like (please don't use coffee as your theme if you're a copywriter. Katie will find you!!!).
A good theme works as a metaphor, and metaphors are shortcuts. The brain is pre-wired to make sense of them. They make your message land faster, stick longer, and do more heavy lifting across everything from your business name to your social captions to your email sign-offs.
The reason Flying Colours Creative® and The Freak Show WORK as a theme is because the message came first. Katie wasn't looking for something I personally liked: she was looking for what made sense given what I was trying to say.
The circus imagery didn't come from my living room; it came from the message. Color, boldness, personality, standing out. The theme was the through line that made it all make sense.
A great theme solves three problems: memory, differentiation, and distance.
You become recognisable without having to share your breakfast. People DM me photos of carousels from their hometowns — and while that might sound like a vanity metric (though I can tell you it's cool as hell), what it actually means is that those same people are equally likely to remember me when it counts: when a friend asks for a designer recommendation or when a client is ready to rebrand.
The theme is the anchor, and an anchor doesn't need your personal life to hold.
This is the hill Katie will die on... and I'm right there with her.
We are a generation that outsources everything. And while that's fine for a lot of things, naming is not one of them. When you poll your audience, you're handing a high-stakes strategic decision to people who don't have your criteria, don't know your brand message, and are filtering your name through their own experiences and vibes.
No matter how much you've overshared on the internet, they still don't know what you know about your own business. Everyone's bringing their own baggage, and when you get it wrong because you let someone else decide, you're the one who has to undo it.
Naming requires strategy, not a poll. Have the conviction to make the call yourself!
So... if not your audience, then what? Katie uses a self-testing framework before any name gets the green light:
That last one is the big one. If you're mumbling your business name when someone asks what you do, or pivoting to "oh, I'm in marketing" instead of saying the actual name, that's your answer. You need to be able to say it with conviction.
People often put so much pressure on the name that nothing will ever be good enough.
Your name is not responsible for:
Your brand name is the foot in the door. It makes people curious enough to look twice. What happens after that (the delivery, the experience, the consistency) that's where trust and memorability actually live.
So rather than chasing perfect in the emotional, gut-feeling sense, define what strategic perfect looks like for you. Set the criteria first. If the name meets the criteria, it's done its job.
Katie's parting thought: using your personal name as your business name isn't inherently wrong. It's nuanced, it works for some people, and it won't work for others.
But if you're feeling that resentment, that constant exposure, the sense that your audience is entitled to parts of you that you didn't consciously offer? It might be time to make the shift.
And when you do... don't do the naming yourself. Trust ME on that one!
—
✦ “Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business”, by Paul Jarvis
✦ Case Study: Brand Naming Flying Colours Creative
✦ Read Katie’s “Deciding on your Naming Criteria” blog post
✦ Read Katie’s “Chill the f*ck out - your name doesn't have to do everything” blog post
✦ THE EXTRAVAGANZA: A 12-week, all-inclusive brand transformation that gives you all the visuals, website and marketing assets it takes to succeed with Flying Colours
✦ THE COLOUR CIRCLE: Bring the Canva design you’ve been (over)fiddling with for hours
✦ Follow her on Instagram
✦ Check out her Website
✦ Say hey on Instagram
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Naming Expert
Over the last 5 years as a Brand & Marketing Designer, I’ve helped freaks like us design their unconventional brands so they can step onto the main stage & own their weird. Because if you wanted to be, look or sound like everyone else, you wouldn’t be where you are today. Now it’s your turn.
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