Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

How To Avoid A Lame Youth Group Name

By 5 Comments

Lame youth group name
Whiskers couldn’t believe they’d called the youth group that either

Earlier this week, we told you how to come up with good youth group names. The thing is, we wouldn’t be doing our duty unless we covered the flipside – making sure you don’t choose a lame youth group name.

We’ve all been there – you see a flyer, a poster or an invitation to a Facebook event that’s promoting a youth group. And you cringe.

Seriously? They picked that as the name for their youth group? What were they thinking?

The next time that happens, do the youth worker a favor and tell them about this post and our 5 tips to avoid a lame youth group name (spoiler alert: they may not want to be your friend anymore):

1) Long names – If you want young people in the community to come to your youth club, nothing says boooooooring more than calling it “St John The Baptist United Southern Methodist Of The Virgin Mary Reformed Youth Club”.

Unless you’re naming it this way ironically.

Except youth don’t tend to do irony. Even Alanis Morissette didn’t understand what irony is.

So best choice – avoid long names.

2) Badly named acronyms – If you decide to ignore the first point, take care with the acronym of your longer youth group name.

Calling your youth work project “Convicts Redirecting Adolescents Project” could prove tricky if people start to shorten it to an acronym.

3) Anything starting with Re – I’m probably going to offend 90% of youth workers (including Shae when I read this to her!), but here goes. Please don’t call it anything starting with Re.

There are so many groups called Re:vive, Re:new, Re:act, Re:generate, R:e:s:p:e:c:t etc, that it’s just not original anymore. In my opinion these names sound really 90s now, so I’m re:ally tired of re:ading flyers for youth groups named like this, that try to re:ach out to young people without re:alising that it looks lame and isn’t re:levant.

4) Avoid pop culture – It’s tempting to think that good youth group names are cutting edge and should be named after something in popular culture. The problem with this is that your youth group name can become dated pretty quickly.

Imagine if a few years ago, a church named their youth group MyGrace because of the hip and happening MySpace. What might once have seemed cutting edge now looks more dated than an Instagram photo.

5) Old person words – And by old person words, I’m talking words anyone over the age of 21 wouldn’t use. I’ve used some of these already in the post – adolescent, hip and happening, etc. If these words didn’t stand out, it probably means that you’re an old person like me (I’m 31). Yet another reason to have youth pick your youth group name.

Question: What are your tips for avoiding lame youth group names? Let us know in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

Image via TraceyShaw, Flickr

 

What Are Some Good Youth Group Names?

By Leave a Comment

Good youth group names
A church youth group name can be hol(e)y – just avoid the cheese

Q: What are some good youth group names? I’m starting up a new youth work project and want to give it a cool name. Can you help?

A: Ah, the timeless question. Forget dealing with issues like sex, drugs and alcohol – coming up with good youth group names is one of the hardest parts of being a youth worker. Just do what all good (and/or lazy) managers do: delegate.

Except in this case, delegation is actually youth participation. Yep – have your young people pick the youth group’s name for themselves. There are a couple of ways you can approach this:

1) Free choice

The first option is to give the young people free reign over what name the youth group will be given. They come up with different names, make their own shortlist and then come to a final decision as to what it’ll be called.

If you go down this route, you have to be committed to seeing the process through. If the young people come up with a bunch of different names that you don’t like and aren’t any good, it’s going to be hard to override their choices as this makes it look like you don’t value their opinions, making the activity counterproductive.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t give them this freedom – just remember that young people can be extremely random, so they may well pick a name you’d prefer not to go with. An alternative method of having young people choose a youth group name is……

2) Provide a Shortlist

Come up with some names you’d be happy with, then present the shortlist for the youth to make the final decision. This way, you can ensure that you’ll be happy whatever the final decision, while the youth still get to participate in the process of naming the youth group.

~

It’s not always going to be feasible to have young people choosing a name though. For example, if you’re starting up a new youth work project, you may well need a name in place before any young people join the project in the first place. Other times, a youth work project may only last for a few sessions, so spending time coming up with a name for the youth group is a waste of valuable session time.

So here are 5 tips for coming up with good youth group names:

1) Short – Keeping the name short helps make it easy to remember and by being short, is more likely to be snappy too. A short youth group name also makes it easier to fit on flyers, quicker to say when discussing the youth group or project, etc.

2) Not cheesy – It can be easy for adults to think something sounds cool, but to young people it just sounds lame. That’s why having young people pick the name is a better option – they’re unlikely to choose something cheesy.

3) Timeless – Unless you’re planning on changing the name every couple of years, try to ensure the name isn’t going to date easily.

4) Relevant – If possible, try to pick a name that actually relates to your youth group. This then helps people know what they can expect – whether that’s youth, adults, donors, etc.

5) Domain name – OK, so this might not be a major consideration for many youth workers. However, if you’re planning on building a website for your youth group or project, you’ll want to make sure the domain name (or a derivative of it) is available.

For example, Shae used a run a youth work project called Ngage. This fulfills all of the above suggestions as:

  • It’s short
  • It’s not cheesy
  • It’s timeless
  • It’s relevant (the project was designed to keep students engaged in high school)
  • A domain name would have been available – although ngage.com wouldn’t have been available, something like ngageproject.co.uk could have been used if they needed a website

Now that you know how to choose a cool name, check out our tips on how to avoid a lame youth group name.

Question: What tips do you have for choosing good youth group names? Let us and other youth workers know in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed