App Name ASO: How to Name Your App to Rank #1
We analyzed 5,347 App Store searches to see how much your app name decides who ranks first, and how small apps use it to beat big ones.
Here's something you can see in almost any App Store search: an app with a few thousand ratings sitting above one with hundreds of thousands. Search habit tracker and HabitKit, with 2,484 ratings, ranks #2. Finch, with 764,669, is down at #4.
The difference is the name. HabitKit's is "Habit Tracker - HabitKit". Finch's is "Finch: Self-Care Pet", and "habit tracker" only shows up in its subtitle.
Everyone in ASO will tell you to put your keyword in the app name. We wanted to know how much it really matters today, and when it lets a small app win. Here's what the data says.
Your Name Matters Most for the #1 Spot
We checked, position by position, how often the app has every word of the search in its name. Word order doesn't matter, simple plurals count, and small words like "for" and "the" are ignored.
Look at the shape. From #4 to #50 the line is almost flat: an app at #20 is about as likely to have the keyword in its name as an app at #4. Then it more than doubles at #1.
So the name doesn't lift you everywhere. Your ratings, downloads and keyword list are what get you onto the first page. But once you're there, the app whose name says exactly what was searched is the one Apple most often puts first. And #1 is the spot that gets most of the taps.
That matches what Ariel Michaeli of Appfigures has found for years: the name is the strongest piece of metadata as far as search is concerned (Appfigures).
Lead With Your Keyword
In a teardown in October 2025, Ariel said Apple gives more weight to the words at the start of your name (Appfigures). Our data backs that up, and the gap is bigger than we expected.
| Keyword in the name | At #1 | Top 3 | Avg. position |
|---|---|---|---|
| At the start | 48.7% | 66.0% | 3.2 |
| Later in the name | 12.1% | 33.7% | 5.3 |
Top-ten apps with the whole keyword in their name: 3,714 that start with it, 4,701 that don't.
You can see it in habit tracker. "Habit Tracker - HabitKit" leads with the keyword and ranks #2. "Onrise: Habit Tracker & Focus" has almost the same number of ratings and the same keyword, but after its brand, and it ranks #3.
This is the real decision when you name an app: "Brand: Keyword" or "Keyword: Brand". If people already search for your brand, lead with it. If they don't yet, putting it first spends your strongest position on a word nobody types.
How Small Apps Outrank Big Ones
You might think big apps rank first because they're big, and the name is a coincidence. So we compared every pair of apps inside the same top ten.
When an app with the keyword in its name ranks above one without, the higher app has fewer ratings 78% of the time. When neither has it in the name, that number is 41%, so the bigger app usually wins. That's across about 38,000 pairs.
Here's an extreme case. In budget planner, "Monthly: Budget Planner" had 36 ratings and ranked #3. EveryDollar, with 84,147 ratings and "Budget Management" in its name, ranked #4.
That's the good news for a small app. You can't buy a hundred thousand ratings, but you can choose your name.
Name vs. Subtitle: Where Your Keyword Should Go
Apple's search results don't show subtitles, so we checked this on a smaller set: the 98 keywords in our keyword index, where we read all ten subtitles. These are shorter, more popular searches.
| Where the keyword is | Top-ten apps | #1 apps |
|---|---|---|
| In the name | 55.0% | 62 of 98 |
| Only in the subtitle | 8.2% | 7 |
| Split between the two | 5.9% | 7 |
| In neither | 30.9% | 22 |
Two things stand out. Only 7 of the 98 #1 apps had the keyword in the subtitle and not the name, and Finch's #4 in habit tracker shows where that usually lands you. And almost a third of the top ten have the keyword in neither. They rank on the hidden keyword list, on downloads, or on a brand people know. Your visible text is the main way in, but not the only one.
Go After Longer Searches
| Search | Keywords | #1 has it | #11–20 have it |
|---|---|---|---|
| One word | 261 | 63.6% | 46.4% |
| Two words | 1,798 | 46.4% | 20.4% |
| Three or more | 3,288 | 51.2% | 4.5% |
All 5,347 searches, brand searches included.
For one-word searches like meditation or weather, almost everyone has the word in their name, even on page two. It's the price of entry, and ratings decide the order.
Longer searches are different. Hardly anyone below the top ten has the whole phrase in their name, but half the #1 apps do. That's where a precise name still makes you stand out, and they're the searches a smaller app can realistically win. See how to choose keywords you can rank for.
Your App Name Checklist
- Pick one keyword for the name. The one you most want to rank #1 for, that is popular enough to matter and that you have a realistic chance at.
- Put it first. In our data, leading with the keyword is the difference between 12% and 49% of #1 spots.
- Look for searches nobody has claimed. Open the top ten for each candidate. If no app has the whole keyword in its name, that's your opening. Ariel recommends the same thing: target keywords where the top apps aren't optimizing their visible metadata. Try it on budget planner, photo editor or sleep sounds.
- Skip one-word head terms you can't win. Everyone has them in their name.
- Give the subtitle your second keyword, and the keyword list everything else, with no repeats.
- Measure before and after. Note your rank for your top searches, ship the new name, and check again a week after the update is live.
How We Did This
We took every US App Store search ASOTool had read in full between 28 and 30 October 2026: 5,347 keywords, each with its top 50 results as Apple returned them. These are keywords developers track in the tool, so they lean towards specific, multi-word searches rather than head terms.
We set aside 975 searches for a particular brand, where the search names the top app's developer or is that app's name spelled differently ("all trails" for AllTrails). Brand searches put the brand first no matter what, so they say nothing about keywords. That left 4,372 generic searches, which is what the figures above use unless they say otherwise. The habit tracker and budget planner examples are from our keyword pages as read on 17 October 2026.
One caveat: this shows what ranks, not why. An app named after a keyword is often built for exactly that search, and people who search it may install it more. That feeds ranking too, since Apple counts downloads and ratings as well as text (Apple). The pair comparison controls for size, but not for how well each app fits the search. The only way to be sure for your app is to change the name and measure.
- ASOTool search data: 5,347 US App Store searches, top 50 results each, read 28–30 October 2026. Subtitles from 98 pages in our keyword index.
- Apple, App Store search.
- Appfigures, Keyword teardown #18: the name and subtitle aren't the same, September 2021.
- Appfigures, Fixing your ASO to compete like the biggest apps, October 2025.
Keywords with the most room left
21 Questions - Card Games
Bubble Level for iPhone
Roost Bedtime Routines
StressWatch: AI Stress Monitor
Photo Cleaner ®
Jawline Exercises, MewingCoach
Every one of them is on the keyword index.