Publishing House Name Generator

How the Publishing House Name Generator works

Publishing house name generator: choosing a name that fits

A publishing house is judged by the spines on a shelf and its name is read at the foot of a title page, so it has to sound like an outfit that has been there for a century and will read your manuscript with care; the five shapes here are the ones presses, imprints, independent publishers and university presses use, and they are among the most old-fashioned names in this section because the trade is. The surname pair, Whitfield & Osei, Kemp & Lund Publishing, Hartley, Finch & Co., is the classic house's shape, two founders joined by an ampersand, and it is the most trusted in the trade because the great houses were named that way; the surnames here are common and no real house is meant. The book-word-and-press form, Lantern Press, Marginalia Books, Ironquill Publishing, Folio Editions, is the independent press's shape, a word from the anatomy of a book or the craft of print with a trade word, and it says a house that cares about the object; the famous book words are taken, so search. The place-and-books form, Northgate Books, Riverside Editions, Highfield University Press, is the regional and academic shape, an invented place and a trade word, and University Press is restricted to actual universities, so it is here for fiction only. The surname-and-house form, Hartley House, Finch & Sons, Osei Press, is the single founder's shape, and House is the trade's word for a publisher, which is why the section is called publishing houses. And the bird-or-object-and-press form, Blue Heron Press, Owl & Anvil, Kestrel Books, Lantern & Wren, is the small press's shape, a colophon animal or object, and it is chosen because the animal becomes the printer's mark on the spine; birds are the trade's favourite because they are small and print well.

The surnames, book words, places, birds and objects are ordinary and the compounds shared, so a result here is a new combination and not an existing house by design, but publishers are catalogued everywhere, so search the book databases and the ISBN agency's publisher list, where every publisher is registered, then the business register, the domain and the trademark register in the publishing class, since the famous press words and birds are registered. A publisher's name also has to work as a colophon on a spine a centimetre wide, so it should be short and have a mark that can be drawn in one colour.

For the magazine the house also puts out, the Magazine name page; for the record label next door, the Record label page; for the bookshop that stocks the list, the Shop name page; for the author's own imprint, the Brand name page; and for the company behind the house, the Company name page.

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