RIA Firm Naming 101

Coming up with the perfect brand name for your investment advisory firm is often a lot harder  than it sounds. But when you take the time to understand the types of brand names that exist, you’ll be able to navigate the name game a little easier.

Whether you’re registering a new advisory practice or rebranding an existing one, this guide will help you evaluate the pros and cons of each naming type to find the right fit for your financial services business.

From BlackRock and Vanguard, to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, we’ll explore effective brand naming strategies that illustrate what works in the financial sector—and why.

CONTENTS

  • Why is a Brand Name so Important in the Financial Services Industry?
  • 7 Popular Types of Brand Names for Investment Advisors (With Examples)
  • Key Considerations for Naming Your RIA Firm
  • Final Thoughts on Financial Advisor Brand Names

Why is a Brand Name so Important in the Financial Services Industry?

In the investment advisory space, your brand name serves as the foundation of your firm’s identity. It’s far more than just a label—it’s a powerful asset that distinguishes your practice from competitors and communicates your value proposition to potential clients.

For financial advisors, a strong brand name carries particular significance given the industry’s emphasis on trust and fiduciary responsibility. When properly protected through registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, your brand name becomes intellectual property that safeguards your reputation and the equity you’ve built with clients.

In a sector where clients entrust you with their financial futures, your firm’s name often forms their critical first impression. It can instantly signal expertise, stability, and trustworthiness—or fail to inspire confidence. That’s why understanding the strategic implications of different naming approaches is essential for creating a brand identity that resonates with your target clientele, reflects your firm’s core values, and supports your long-term business vision in the competitive advisory landscape.

The 7 Types of Brand Names 

There are many types of brand names. If you’ve done any research into the subject, you’ll know that different agencies and blogs slice and dice these naming conventions many different ways.

At Advisor Guidance, we work with 7 types of brand names. And while this list is by no means meant to be definitive (there will always be names that could fall in more than one category or defy categorization altogether), it is a useful lens through which to analyze the most successful financial advisor brand names.

Whichever category it falls in, the company name you choose will fundamentally shape your entire brand identity system—from your organizational structure and visual identity to your supporting messaging and client communications.

As we’ll see in the many examples of financial services brand names below, there are wildly successful advisory firms behind each naming type, so, in principle, any of these naming types could work for you.

There are, however, some important pros and cons that you’ll want to consider before deciding which type of name is best for your investment advisory practice.  Let’s take a closer look at each type of name, including their pros and cons, and examples of brand names for each.

1. Descriptive Brand Names

Descriptive names are those that explicitly convey the investment services offered by your firm.

The advantage of a descriptive brand name is that it leaves no question as to what kind of financial business you’re in. A descriptive name clearly communicates your brand category and/or core competency in wealth management, financial planning, or investment advisory services.

And while descriptive names can feel somewhat unremarkable, plenty of financial brands have been able to turn the tables on otherwise hum-drum names by leaning into their ordinariness.

The downside of a descriptive brand name is that it can hamstring your advisory practice as you grow and look to diversify. While they are functional and utilitarian for a specific offering, descriptive business names don’t leave a lot of room for creativity or interpretation.

Descriptive names can also be difficult to trademark since they rely on common words or phrases. We’ll see why this can present a challenge a little later in this post.

Descriptive brand name examples in financial services include:

  • Investment Management Solutions
  • Retirement Planning Partners
  • Wealth Advisors Group
  • Tax Advantage Consultants
  • Financial Planning Associates
  • Capital Management Advisors
  • Investment Strategies Inc.
  • Mutual Fund Store
  • Personal Capital
  • Asset Management Group
  • Fidelity Investments
  • Financial Engines
  • Prudential Financial

2. Evocative Brand Names

On the other end of the creative spectrum from descriptive names are evocative names. Evocative names use metaphor and allusion to evoke a brand’s positioning and personality.

Some of the best financial advisor brand names are evocative. This is because evocative names help you tell a powerful brand story about an idea that’s bigger than just the investment services you provide.

Their uniqueness means evocative business names are generally easier to trademark than descriptive names (although, it’s getting harder and harder to find an existing word that isn’t already trademarked in financial services.)

One of the few downsides with an evocative name is that it requires a bit of imagination to see the connection between the name and advisory business behind it. For this reason, it can sometimes be challenging to get leadership buy-in on an evocative name.

Evocative brand name examples in financial services include:

  • BlackRock
  • Vanguard
  • Beacon Wealth
  • Summit Financial
  • Acorns
  • Betterment
  • Wealthfront
  • Robinhood
  • Cornerstone Advisors
  • Horizon Investments
  • Bridgewater Associates
  • Catalyst Wealth
  • Blue Ocean Capital

3. Invented Brand Names

The best part about brand names is that if you can’t find the perfect word, you can always make one up. Invented names are coined words you won’t find in any dictionary.

Invented names offer the broadest creative latitude when naming your advisory firm or investment product. But that doesn’t mean a good invented name is easy to conjure.

Inventing a name that sounds like a real word (as opposed to unintelligible gibberish) and has some semblance of meaning can be tough. This is why most invented names evolve from common root origins (Latin or Greek), are actually portmanteaus (a combination of two or more words), or are intentional misspellings that leverage the meaning of an existing word.

Invented names are usually easier to trademark, but the more unique they are, the more time and money you will need to spend to create a meaningful brand story around them.

There is no shortage of financial firms that have built monumental brand equity around a thoroughly distinctive invented name.

Invented brand name examples in financial services include:

  • Axos Financial
  • Invesco
  • Investopia
  • Ameriprise
  • Allianz
  • Empower
  • Xignite
  • Venmo
  • Revolut
  • Questrade
  • Zerodha
  • Finacity

4. Lexical Brand Names

Lexical names rely on wordplay for effect. Puns, phrases, compound words, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and intentional misspellings are all styles of this popular naming type.

Lexical names are often clever. Some would argue they’re too clever.

This naming type has been used by some financial services brands, though it’s less common in the investment advisory space than in more consumer-facing industries. It’s a style that can work for financial brands aiming to differentiate themselves through approachability and simplicity.

When it comes to corporate financial branding, you won’t find many serious institutional investment firms whose names fall into the lexical category. This is a great example of knowing which naming type is best suited for the brand you’re looking to build and the competitive landscape in which you operate.

Lexical names also risk feeling a bit dated. Unless you can come up with a world-class pun that’s never been used before, today’s sophisticated investor is more likely to roll their eyes than open their wallets when encountering a lexical brand name in the modern financial market.

Lexical brand name examples in financial services include:

  • WealthSimple
  • MoneyLion
  • SoFi (Social Finance)
  • ChangeInvest
  • CashApp
  • BrightPlan
  • StashInvest
  • SaveDaily
  • TrueWealth
  • DollarSmart
  • MoneySmart
  • InvestReady

5. Acronymic Brand Names

If there’s one naming convention that has come to signify large, established financial institutions, it is the acronym. From TIAA to USAA, the combination of uppercase letters signifying a longer business name has always had a certain heft behind it.

But there are obvious challenges with an acronymic name. A combination of letters does not, in and of itself, have the same meaning as the words it signifies. It can reference those words, but only if your audience knows what they are. (How many people stopped on the street could actually tell you what the letters TIAA or HSBC stand for?)

Instead, acronyms often work in the same way that invented names do. Whatever meaning they have is the result of years of branding and marketing, not of the words (or letters) themselves.

Over their decades in existence, brands like TIAA and USAA have invested millions of dollars in both brand positioning and brand design to infuse these letters with trust and credibility.

A startup advisory firm these days would be hard-pressed to come up with a good reason to go with an acronymic brand name, though. As a rule, acronyms are difficult for audiences to remember and even harder for attorneys to trademark.

Acronymic brand name examples in financial services include:

  • TIAA
  • HSBC
  • UBS
  • RBC
  • BMO
  • JPM
  • ING
  • AIG
  • GIC
  • CFP
  • AXA
  • BNY Mellon
  • USAA

6. Geographical Brand Names

Boston Private, American Express, Bank of America—sometimes financial brands are inextricably tied to the cities where they were born or the regions they want to evoke.

Geographical names intertwine a brand with all the cultural, natural, or historical associations of its namesake. Names like Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) and Northern Trust conjure regional strength and stability, while names like First Manhattan and Silicon Valley Bank evoke prestigious business centers.

Often, geographical names are behind financial companies that started locally but have since made it big. This is one of the biggest detractors of this naming type.

After all, if you name your advisory firm after the city or state where you’re located, what happens when you want to expand into other markets? Outgrowing the region where you started is one of the most common signs it’s time to rebrand your business.

A geographical name in financial services has also likely already been done. Put a city or a state name in front of a financial product or service and you’re almost certain to find an existing brand.

Geographical brand name examples in financial services include:

  • First Manhattan
  • Boston Private
  • Silicon Valley Bank
  • American Express
  • Bank of America
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Northern Trust
  • Citizens Bank
  • Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO)
  • Royal Bank of Scotland
  • TD Ameritrade
  • East West Bank
  • Fifth Third Bank

7. Founder Brand Names

In the investment advisory space, the tradition of naming firms after their founders remains a powerful and enduring approach that signals personal accountability and established expertise to potential clients.

The founder brand tradition stretches back to the earliest financial institutions. The era when J.P. Morgan dominated Wall Street and Goldman Sachs was the gold standard, eponymous firms were the norm rather than the exception.

Today, founder-based names continue to maintain a strong presence in the financial advisory landscape. Established institutions like Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch, and Edward Jones demonstrate the enduring power of this naming convention in building client trust.

The advantages of founder names in financial services are significant. They’re typically straightforward to trademark and can instantly differentiate your practice in a crowded marketplace. For advisors with established professional reputations, leveraging your name can transfer existing client relationships and industry credibility directly to your firm.

However, founder names come with considerations. Like other abstract naming types, they generally require substantial marketing investment to build meaningful associations beyond the founder’s personal reputation. This is particularly true for newer advisors or those without extensive industry recognition.

For a founder’s name to truly resonate, the individual should embody qualities that clients seek in their financial relationships—expertise, trustworthiness, and specialized knowledge. Without these attributes being clearly associated with the named founder, potential clients may struggle to understand your firm’s value proposition at first glance.

Founder brand name examples in financial services include:

  • Morgan Stanley
  • Goldman Sachs
  • Charles Schwab
  • Merrill Lynch
  • Edward Jones
  • Raymond James
  • T. Rowe Price
  • Franklin Templeton
  • Legg Mason
  • Rothschild & Co

Key Considerations for Naming Your Advisory Firm

Regardless of which brand name type you choose, you’re bound to realize the same thing: naming a RIA firm is harder than it sounds! But while naming is one of the trickiest parts of branding, it can also be among the most rewarding.

Why is naming so tricky?

Because, while there are thousands of great brand name ideas out there, almost all of them are already trademarked!

This can make naming or rebranding an advisory practice a frustrating journey. But if you have the right tools, a little patience, and a good team aligned around the criteria and expectations of your search, it’s a journey well worth taking.

There are a few important criteria that should inform the search for any financial advisor brand name. A good name is one that:

  • Evokes your brand positioning in the financial services landscape
  • Embodies your brand personality (trustworthy, innovative, conservative, etc.)
  • Conveys one or more brand benefits (stability, growth, expertise)
  • Avoids negative or stigmatized financial concepts
  • Has an available trademark
  • Has an available URL

That’s quite a few boxes to check when you’re vetting potential names. That’s why it’s so important to keep your expectations realistic. You should start with the assumption that the perfect brand name doesn’t exist (or if it does, it’s already been trademarked).

This isn’t to say that you won’t come up with an amazing name for your advisory firm. But going into the process thinking there is a name out there that is going to meet every criterion and make every member of your team happy is only going to result in disappointment.

The Harvard Law Review released a study a few years ago titled “Are We Running Out of Trademarks?”, which found that more than 70% of common English words have already been trademarked.

The good news is a name itself will never make or break your advisory firm’s performance. A quick survey of the top financial services companies will show you there’s a lot more to a successful brand than just a name.

BlackRock, Vanguard, and Betterment are all pretty simple names taken out of context. But that obviously didn’t stop these companies from building monumentally successful financial brands around them.

The Takeaway

Here’s the truth:

A good name will never make a mediocre advisory practice better, but a great advisory practice can make even the most basic name seem genius.

Another important thing to keep in mind in the naming process is that the full potential of any name is impossible to envision without the context of a complete brand experience. At the end of the day, your name will not exist in a vacuum. It will be accompanied by a logo, a color scheme, photography, messaging, etc.

So, keep an open mind when searching for your name. A calculated risk on an unconventional name can open up all sorts of opportunities to differentiate your advisory firm. The best brand name is the one that inspires you (and everyone in your organization) to do great things.

Just trust that with a strong verbal and visual identity and a memorable brand experience, a good branding agency can build a world-class financial advisory brand around (almost) any name you choose.