

Ask HN: How do you name your projects/products? - superted

Naming a product or a project is a rather interesting aspect of the development and marketing process. I am sure that a wisely chosen name gives you a head start and helps you communicate your vision to other people, and that a poor name could just as well be holding you back.<p>Here are a couple of alternatives on top of mind, to get started:<p>1) Use an informative naming, where the function /use of the product is reflected in the name. An obvious example is "Hacker News".
2) A quirky name that is catchy and easy to remember. For instance, search engines tend to fall into this category. Also, a lot of car manufacturers have adopted this kind of naming.
3) Emotional naming, where the aim is to use words in a way that they instantly create a desired feeling when consumed.<p>How do you name your projects/products?
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K3G
For my projects on the side (generally hardware, I'm a mech guy...), I name
them after a mythological creature. I just finished Seraphim, a multi speed
epicyclic gearbox. Earlier was Juggernaut, a longboard truck with a locked
roll axis.

For my work (robotics), we take the name each robot project based off the new
features that define it from the older version. For example, we run the
Erratic robot line, and currently offer the ERA-MOBI. Since it's now public
knowledge, we released the ERA-XTD, or an extended and advanced version of the
Erratic. Our new products are named based on function (STH-DCSG == Stereo
Head, Digital Camera, Shutter: Global).

Sorry if it's not a strict scheme like you might be looking for, we tend to
fly by the seat of our pants...

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gspyrou
+1 For the mythologιcal reference . For robotics you could also check
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talos>

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steveklabnik
Naming a project is the hardest part of the project. I recently had one name
that I was really proud of, though... I started writing a little package
manager in Ruby, and when I was thinking about the name, I remembered that a
"furoshiki" is a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth... so that all seems to
go really well together.

