What's in a name?

I just thought I'd shed some light on the name Mayflower Photography.

Anyone who has ever started a business has probably been through the nightmare that is choosing a name. It's almost as stressful as naming a child, which in my case was no easy feat.

Nowadays, it's not just choosing a "different", eye catching name, but the availability of a web address. Is it ok to just have .co.uk or would it be preferable to have the .com as well?

To start with I thought of using just my name as seems to be very common amongst photographers, but I didn't feel it sounded right. So then on to finding some inspiration from things I like. Flowers, the colour purple, hippos (slightly random, but I've always had a fondness for these amazing creatures) etc. I tried using names to do with light, colour etc. as they is a major factor in photography, but all I could come up with were either already taken as web addresses or just didn't sound right.

So after many evenings of discussions with my husband and checking the availability of everything we came up with I was browsing through my photographs and came across this picture.This is one of the first "proper" photos I took when I was just starting to take a serious interest in photography. It was taken at a local steam museum we were visiting with my son who has a minor obsession with steam engines.

This train is The Mayflower. I saw it and loved the name. www.mayflowerphotography.co.uk was available as a site and so it was decided. This would be the name of my new business.