I'm often asked, "Why "Usagi and Me"?"

Why is the shop called "Usagi to Boku" (Rabbit and Me)?

Recently, I've been getting a lot of questions from customers who have found out about our store.
A question that's quite difficult to answer.

It's not the name of a pet I had, or the name of a favorite author or novel.
However, I just love rabbits, so I wanted to have a shop and name with a rabbit motif.
There's no deep meaning to it.

It would have been nice if they could have incorporated a concept other than rabbits into the store name...

An impactful, catchy and cute store name.
We wanted the name of the restaurant to tickle people's hearts, making them think, "Maybe I'd like to go there..."

Other than that, I just looked for words that would go perfectly with rabbit, such as stump, moon, meadow, hay, and me, and chose words that I thought would stimulate creativity.
He doesn't call his wife "Usagi-chan," and he doesn't have particularly strong feelings about the "Toboku" part.

Now, the owner has become Usaboku-san, and I've grown to love him as I've been using him.

So, after being asked the question, the conversation went something like, "Well, it's because I like rabbits..." "Hmm..."
There are no episodes that meet expectations, and the conversation afterwards doesn't expand at all. I wish he could tell a clever lie like, "My long-lost brother had a rabbit..."

I'm truly sorry...

However, there were a few things I kept in mind when naming the store, so I would like to add just those points.
I hope this will be helpful for everyone who is thinking of starting a business after retirement.

1. Store names in Japanese to make them easy to remember

I decided to call it "Usagi" instead of "Rabbit" or "Lapin."
When I'm reading a book about cafes, I check out a place I want to go to, but if the name is written in foreign letters, I often forget it by the time I close the book, or I don't know how to read it in the first place.
So, I decided to choose a store name in Japanese that would be easy to remember.

Also, if the store's name is written in English, I thought that if the spelling is incorrect or the name is written in katakana, it might not come up in the results when you try to search for the store.

If we were a shop with a worldwide presence, I think it would be better to use English letters, but we are a small coffee shop, so we had to use Japanese.
Another reason for using hiragana is that it gives a gentler impression than kanji or katakana.

Thanks to you, he seems to have been able to remember the name of our store since he was about two years old.

2. No competing search terms

After coming up with some possible store names, I started by searching on Google.
I checked to see if there were any stores or services with the same name.

When searching for a store, I often search by "place name + store name," but when I search by just the store name, only information about our store comes up.
It's easy to find the search results you want.

This was also a prerequisite that we considered.

3. You can get SNS addresses with the same ID.

Once I decided to start a shop, I started using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
All IDs are standardized as "usaboku", which is easier for me to remember and type.

Also, I thought that long store names would be shortened, so at this point I made sure to include the abbreviation when announcing the name.

Finally…

Here's what I wrote down that came to mind:

I also think that, as a result, the personality of the person will be reflected in the store name, and conversely, the atmosphere of the store name will influence the store and the person's personality.

Names are important.

Well, in our case, when it comes to naming a cafe, I think it's best to not think too deeply about it and just choose a word that you feel attached to.

See you soon.