Camgirls: Changing Names / Rebranding

Many models find that when their career begins to grow that they begin to grow as well, and sometimes with this growth you start to dread the first name you picked when you started camming or creating clips. Whether you find you didn’t do enough research on your name and you’re conflicting with other models, your name is too long or too hard to remember, or your name simply doesn’t fit you or the brand you’ve developed anymore… A name change can become a topic of extreme stress. This is an even bigger problem for established models who have a fan base that knows them by name. Although it may seem stressful, keep in mind it’s not impossible. Here are some tips that might help you.

Aerie’s Naming Mistakes and Name Changes

Try picking a name that isn’t completely different from your original name. For example: when I started camming my name was Aerie Lovee. No, that’s not some fancy french last name, it’s love with an extra E. This allowed for a ton of typos when people searched for me, tried to email me, etc. Due to that (and due to being a Streamate model) I changed my name to Aerie SM. That was also a MISTAKE. Never pick a name that represents a site, your relationship with sites you work on will probably change over time. This has led me to my final name, Aerie Saunders. It is similar to Aerie SM, it’s a “real name” and it’s fairly easy to remember.

Researching The New Name

Research your new name and see what the “web real estate” on that name is like. Try searching for just the name, then the name followed by “porn” or “live cam” and so on. If it’s already highly dominated by other pre-existing people with a large online presence, maybe consider a different name.

Pick A Functional Name

Pick a functional name, one that doesn’t have anything that’s identifying. For example: AshleySpitSlut (Does this person actually exist? I don’t know!) is a very specific name. Over time our hypothetical Ashley may start catering to different fetishes, and may want to stop doing spit porn. With the name AshleySpitSlut she may have a hard time expanding past that niche.

Make Sure The Name Isn’t Taken

Make sure with your cam and clip sites that you’ll be able to change that name and it’s not already claimed and that it meets their character requirements.

Is It Available On Social Media?

Make sure your new username isn’t already claimed on social media, it makes your life much easier if your cam site, clip sites, and social media all share the same handle because it makes you easier to find.

Migrating Your Model Website

If you already have a pre-existing website that was your username or had your old name in it (for example: I had AerieSM.com) redirect that old site to your new website, don’t just delete the old site entirely.

What To Do With Old Social Handles

When you change your username on social media, create a “camper” account to sit on your old username so people don’t use it to catfish. You can even opt to use this account as a back up account since it never hurts to have a back up. It also doesn’t hurt to throw your new username in the bio so people searching for you by using your old name can find your active account.
Try not to change your name too much! Customers will usually remember you by your handles, and if you change them too frequently you may lose out on potential customers because they can’t find your accounts.

Avoid Porny Words In Names

Avoid “porny” words. Let’s go back to our hypothetical “AshleySpitSlut” (I’m so sorry if you exist) model. Spit and slut are highly used keywords in porn and will minimize the amount of search results specific to you on porn sites. If someone is looking for you specifically but a model with more views/likes uses the key terms in your username, it may display them first.

Name Changes / Rebranding Is Difficult!

Don’t stress out too much! Changing your name is hard, but it’s not impossible. It’s even harder if you do a complete name change. Keep in mind if you change your entire name, people may call you by the old one. Prepare for a slow transition while people adapt to the change.