How To Name Your Language School (eikaiwa in Japan)

Recently, I’ve heard some school owners suggest that there’s no problem with naming your school after yourself when starting a language school. I would also agree that there’s “no problem” with it, but why settle for satisfactory when you can do better? Any business that aims to be satisfactory or mediocre will probably get trampled by their competition. Just in case people are still confused about how to name their new language school (eikaiwa in Japan) when starting out, I’ll explain why there are better choices than using your own name for your school.

First, people who claim it’s okay to use your own name for your language school often reference famous companies such as Cadbury’s, Heinz, Adidas, McDonald’s, and Shane Eikaiwa to prove their point. Let’s think about that for a couple of seconds. You’re about to start a business and create a branding/marketing strategy for your new company and you’re comparing yourself to companies that started over 50 years ago (Shane), over 100 years ago (Heinz), or over 200 years ago (Cadbury’s). Do you think these companies were focused on internet marketing and SEO strategies over 70 years ago? Not a chance. Do you think that these companies have survived solely based on their names? No. And for this handful of examples, how many millions of companies named after the company founders have failed? Probably most of them. My point is that these examples aren’t very relevant when deciding a name for a new language school or business.

So using my name for my language school is bad?

No, of course not. The idea when starting out and creating a name for your language school is to create something that’s memorable, unique, and if possible, describes the brand or product being sold. If you’re a local celebrity starting an English school, then maybe your name might achieve some of these requirements, but for most people, your name can’t effectively describe your product.

Now let’s think about what makes a name memorable. Consider the following randomly generated names: Xenia, Cleisthenes, Haerviu. Are they easy for you to remember? They aren’t for me. What about Japanese names? Can you easily remember these names: Haruto, Rimia, Kounosuke? I’ve lived in Japan for 13 years and still struggle with Japanese names.

Now consider that when starting an English school in Japan, 99% of your customers will most likely be Japanese. Can you guarantee that they’re familiar with your name and can easily remember it? Another concern you should have with using your own name is that a search for “English School” could give results such as “Mike’s English School,” “Mac’s English School,” and “Meeka’s English School.” It will be difficult to stand out from the crowd if everyone has similarly named schools.