Name of the hostel?

I’m with CAPhouse. I like Goodnight Grooves.

Incorporating the city name is good for SEO purposes. It’s simple and direct, and it helps to clarify exactly where you are. It’s not very creative though, and most of your guests will already know what city you’re in by the time they’re considering your hostel.

A name that is original, fun, creative, or silly is much more memorable. It also does a better job of conveying the style and personality of the hostel. And if you ever decide to branch out and open up in a different location, you’ll already have a brand that can travel with you.

Personally, I like putting the word Backpacker in the name, because it’s clear who your market is. I generally assume (perhaps incorrectly?) that a hostel with Backpacker in the name will be a chilled out place that caters to solo travelers. It would be inappropriate if you plan to fill the hostel with groups or try to capture business travelers from local hotels.

Hello there. Good luck on opening your hostel. I love the names too.

I definitely wanted to have Backpackers in our name but it's a preference most of our travelers do not care about. I would definitely try to keep in mind what people will be searching for on Google. You may not think it's important for SEO options but a name like USA Hostels (a chain of 3 in California)is brilliant. They get much more SEO traffic because people Google USA hostel or hostels in the USA.

We just opened last July. I cannot tell you enough how important a name is. We have a famous mountain in our town that looks like a camel called Camelback Mountain so we went with the name CamelBackpackers Hostel. We quickly changed it to CamelBackpackers: A Phoenix Hostel. It sounds crazy but as soon as we changed our name we had more SEO hits. Travelers could actually find us online. We spent about four months trying to correct issues. Now that we've been open for awhile, if we did it again, I would choose an easier more searchable name. I love our name and the concept behind it but I would try to add some of those search words in your name. Even if you added Serbia in the name it would help. You can always call yourself a shorter name (We call ourselves CamelBackpackers) but have your longer name online ie: Goodnight Grooves Serbian Hostel,Goodnight Grooves: A Serbian Hostel, or Goodnight Grooves Serbian Backpacker Experience

Just my two cents. Best of luck to you.
Amber
Owner
CamelBackpackers: A Phoenix Hostel

That makes sense! I'll have to stop by next time out west.

We are also searching for a name for a hostel in Old Town Alexandria, which is the Virginia half of Washington DC. Any suggestions?

We were either thinking of simply DC Metro Hostel or Washington Metro Hostel. It' right on the Metro line to downtown. We also operate a shuttle/tour service called HostelHiker, so also debating whether to use that in the name instead and keep the same logo. Any brilliant ideas out there?

Thanks! I've been thinking the same way ... DC Metro Hostel

We just turned in our special use permit application, so now we have to wait several months for the public hearing. Updates will be posted to https://www.facebook.com/CapitalHostels if interested in following.