Elena Daenen · The Seven Gates
Decided. You agreed with the method name, and you asked whether to keep Elena Jane. The answer is below, with the reasoning, and then the board that got us to the method name, kept as a record so you can see what it beat.
You wrote: "For sure, Elena, but my surname is Daenen, and Jane is my second name." That sentence is the decision. Jane goes. It is a middle name, which means it carries meaning for you and none for anyone else, and next to your work it reads softer than what you actually do in a room. Daenen stays. It is yours, it is unmistakably European, and unlike Elena Jane it is almost certainly free as a handle and a domain.
Said out loud: "I am Elena Daenen. I teach The Seven Gates, a journey through the seven energy centers of the body, with a Greek goddess at each one." Your name in front, the method inside, the goddesses as the layer nobody else has.
No, and the reason is the part of you that is hardest to copy
You asked whether you should use a different name for yourself, not just a different arrangement of your name and the method. The answer is no, and it is worth saying why, because the instinct behind the question is a real one.
Everything that makes a woman trust you is attached to a real person. School was torture. You are dyslexic. You were the difficult child on the floor at five. You went to Nepal and the chakras felt like remembering rather than learning. That story is your credibility, and it is the one thing in this business that cannot be copied by anyone. A made up name cuts you off from all of it in one move, and it buys nothing in return: nobody in your market is looking for a mysterious brand, they are looking for a person they would sit in a room with.
There are three situations where a different name is the right call, and none of them is yours. When the real name is already taken by someone famous in the same field. When the work is anonymous by design. When there are several teachers under one house name. You are one person, teaching in your own body, with a surname that is free as a domain and free as a handle.
If the question came from the surname being hard to say, that is fixed rather than avoided. You gave us the pronunciation on 18 August, DAH-nen, and it now sits in the Brand Book so that every festival, studio and podcast gets it right before they introduce you. A name people have to be taught once is not a problem. It is the second time they hear it that they remember you.
Why your name goes in front of the method, for now
You wrote: "I love the seven gates, which is the method, but why do I need to sell myself first with Elena Daenen?" It is a fair question, so here is the case, and then the condition under which it stops being true.
A method is a promise about what will happen in a room. The only evidence a woman has that the promise is good is the person holding the room. You have no testimonials and no published cases yet, so right now you are the evidence. A name she can look at is worth more than a name she has to trust.
Three common English words cannot be registered as a category. Anyone can open an account called The Seven Gates next year, and some of them will. Elena Daenen · The Seven Gates cannot be copied, because the first half is yours by law and by fact. Putting the method in front would mean building on ground you do not own.
Your whole difference is that you hold the space and do not promise the healing. That is a statement about a person, not about a system. A woman who books you is choosing whose room she wants to be in. Hiding the person behind the method would remove the exact thing that makes you different.
The method is never absent. It is on the second line of the logo, in the bio, in every product name and in the sentence you say out loud. You are not choosing between them. You are choosing which one arrives first.
And here is when it flips, honestly. The day the method can be taught by someone who is not you, it should move in front: a teacher training, a certified facilitator, a licensed programme, a book. At that point people are buying the system rather than the woman, and the name in front should be the system. That is a real milestone and it may come in three years. Until then, your name in front is not vanity. It is the only asset in the business that nobody can take.
What to take, this week
- Instagram · @elenadaenen first. If it is taken, @elena.daenen, then @elenadaenen.yoga. Rename the account you already have rather than opening a new one, so you keep the followers you have.
- Domain · elenadaenen.com, and .be as a second. Take both even if the site is months away, because they cost less than a class and they are gone once someone else has them.
- Email · hello@elenadaenen.com, so nothing goes out from a personal address once you start selling.
- Nothing else needs deciding. Product names, the retreat name and the workshop name can all change later without touching this.
A note of honesty, for your own use: the etymology of Helen is genuinely debated among scholars. The torch and light reading is the traditional one, and it is the one you were given, so it is fair to tell it as the story that sent you to Greece, not as a settled linguistic fact.
The three layers
Elena Daenen. Stays in front. People buy you first. Decided.
The name we are choosing here. It has to be ownable, because it is the thing you will still be teaching in ten years, and the thing others will want to copy.
First Gate, the Journey, One to One, the retreat. These can change freely without ever touching the method's name.
The five criteria
| Criterion | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Ownable | Can this be yours and nobody else's, in a market crowded with yoga teachers? |
| Says what it is | Does a stranger understand roughly what she is buying, without a paragraph of explanation? |
| Travels | Does it survive English, Portuguese and Spanish, the three markets you are heading into? |
| Fits your mouth | Can you say it out loud, on a video, without feeling like someone else? |
| Grows | Does it still work when you add the retreat, the teacher training and the community? |
The seven candidates
It does the descriptive job better than anything else here: a stranger understands the shape of the journey in three words, and it maps cleanly onto the seven centres. It carries real mythological depth, because the descent of Inanna through seven gates, surrendering something at each one, is one of the oldest initiation stories we have. It scales into every product you plan (First Gate, the Seven Gates Journey, the seven day retreat), it survives translation into Portuguese and Spanish untouched, and above all it already fits your mouth. You have said it out loud and it sounded like you.
The words themselves are common, so the name alone cannot be trademarked as a category. You make it yours the way every strong method does: your name in front of it, and the goddess layer inside it, which nobody else has. If you ever want a single ownable word to sit above it, Helia is next on this list.
The one truly ownable option, and the one with the best story. It carries the meaning of your own name: Elena is traditionally read as torch or shining light, and that reading is exactly what sent you to Greece in the first place. Helia is short, feminine without being soft, and pronounceable in every market you are heading into. Keep it in your pocket: the day you want a single word that belongs to nobody else, this is it, and it sits naturally above the Seven Gates rather than replacing it.
On its own it does not say what it is, so it always needs a descriptor beside it. Helia also exists as a brand name in cosmetics, so it would need a trademark check in your category before you committed to it.
Each gate lights a fire, and Hestia, who guards the sacred flame, closes the journey at gate seven. It is immediately visual, easy to illustrate, easy to name products from (First Fire, the Seven Fires Journey), and it converts the abstract idea of an energy centre into something anyone can picture. It also carries heat, which is what a woman in transition is actually looking for.
Fire can read as intense or forceful, which sits slightly against the restorative half of your work, the Yin and the sound healing. Test it with the woman you actually want, not with the one who likes intensity.
Holding the space is literally what a temple does, so the name says your ethics out loud. It is warm, immediately understood, and it names the outcome rather than the mechanism, which is usually the stronger commercial move: she is not buying seven gates, she is buying a place inside herself she can return to.
Heavily used in the wellness market. Low ownability, and a real chance of being confused with someone else's programme.
The closest sibling to Helia, and the fallback if Helia is taken. Theia is the goddess of the light by which we see, which is precisely the promise of the method: you are not given anything new, you are given the light to see what you already carry. Short, ownable, unmistakably Greek.
Less immediately connected to your own name, and slightly harder for an English speaker to pronounce on first sight. Also a known name in tech and in astronomy, though not in your category.
The most poetic option, and the one that carries the transformation arc inside a single word: Kore goes down a maiden and comes back a queen. For a method aimed at women in transition, that is the exact story. Beautiful, short, deeply Greek.
It is bound to one gate rather than to the whole journey, so it distorts the map. It also risks sounding like the beginning of the story when your method is the whole story. Better as the name of a product than of the method.
The Sanskrit option you signalled openness to. It keeps the light metaphor, honours the yoga lineage rather than only the Greek one, and it is already familiar inside the yoga world, which gives you instant credibility with practitioners.
It is familiar inside the yoga world precisely because many people use it, so ownability is low. It also pulls the brand toward India while your archetypal pillar is Greek, which weakens the exact combination that makes you different.
The recommendation
Keep The Seven Gates. It is the clearest name on the board, it already fits your mouth, it survives every language you are heading into, and it scales into every product you have planned. The one thing it cannot do on its own is belong to you, and that is solved by the layer in front of it: your name, and by the layer inside it, the seven goddesses, which nobody else is teaching this way.
In practice: "I teach the Seven Gates, a journey through the body's seven energy centers and the goddess who lives in each one." The method has a name, and you are still the one holding the space.
The upgrade path, for later. If a day comes when you want a single word that is legally and commercially yours, Helia is the one to take, and it sits above the Seven Gates instead of replacing it: Helia · The Seven Gates. Nothing you build now would have to be undone.
Before you commit
- Say it out loud for a week before deciding. Names die in the mouth, not on paper. Record yourself introducing the method three different ways and listen back.
- Secure the handle and the domain for whichever you land on: Instagram, .com and .co. For The Seven Gates, take the pairing with your name rather than the bare words, since the words alone will already be taken somewhere.
- Handle: @elenadaenen @elena.daenen @elenadaenen.yoga. Rename the existing account, do not open a new one.
- If you ever take Helia, run a trademark search in Belgium and the EU first, because it exists as a brand name in cosmetics. If it is taken in your category, Theia is the closest sibling.
- Your instinct beats this table. If one of the seven made something move when you read it, that is data, and it outranks the score.