Highlight names are constrained by display, not by imagination. The label under a highlight cover truncates after roughly ten characters, so a clever name of three words arrives as a fragment nobody can read. Short is not a style choice here, it is the format.
There is also a practical reason to keep them plain. Highlights are one of the few parts of a profile that a returning visitor uses like navigation, so a row of abstract words forces them to tap through everything to find what they came for.
The other rule is clarity. Highlights sit right under the bio, and a visitor uses them to work out whether your profile is worth following. Names that describe the content beat names that are private jokes.
Personal
- Life
- Home
- Family
- Weekends
- The dog
Travel
- Japan
- Roadtrip
- Italy
- Summer
- Camping
Food and drink
- Recipes
- Baking
- Dinners
- Coffee
Business and shop
- Shop
- Menu
- Hours
- Reviews
- FAQ
- Prices
- Booking
- Delivery
- New in
Work and process
- Behind
- Studio
- Making
- Projects
- Before
- After
Aesthetic and lowercase
- soft
- quiet
- slow
- warm
- notes
Hobbies
- Running
- Garden
- Books
- Music
- Climbing
- Sea
- Film
Seasonal and dated
- Winter
- Spring
- Jan 26
- New year
Fitness and health
- Gym
- Runs
- Race day
- PBs
- Walks
Emoji only names
- A single pin for location highlights
- One coffee cup for a food highlight
- A camera for a photography archive
- A house for a renovation series
- A plane for travel
Two word names that still fit
- New in
- Day out
- Q and A
- On sale
- Book now
Pets and family
- Dog
- Cat
- Kids
- Us
- Baby
How to pick one
Count the characters before you fall in love with a name. Anything over about ten will cut, and a truncated label makes an otherwise tidy profile look broken. One word is the safe default, and a short abbreviation works when the cover image carries the meaning. Name for the content rather than the mood, because a visitor scanning your profile is trying to find your menu or your work, not decode “vibes.” Keep the naming style consistent across the row, so either all capitalized or all lowercase, never a mix. Test the row on a phone rather than a laptop, because the label size and the cut point are different there and a name that fits on one can vanish on the other. Order matters too: the leftmost highlight is seen most, so put the one you want people to open first. And rename or archive the highlights that no longer match what you post, since an unused row is dead space under the most valuable part of your profile. One more thing worth doing once a year: open your own profile as a stranger would, from a phone, and see whether the row still describes what you post. Most accounts drift, and the highlights are usually the last part to catch up. For filling the highlights once they are named, the Instagram post ideas generator gives you enough prompts to build a set out of. If you are still deciding which highlights to build, the content pillar generator is a quick way to work out your recurring themes.
It is worth checking the row in both light and dark mode as well, because label text that reads clearly on one background can almost disappear on the other, especially with pale covers and thin fonts.
A useful exercise: write your five names on paper before you touch the app. Doing it in one go forces them into a set, whereas naming each highlight as you create it, months apart, is how rows end up with one word, one abbreviation and one private joke. Consistency is easier to design than to repair.