
Ask HN: Anyone have process for creating good internal application names? - alanl
I work at a large financial institution, and we are really bad at naming our internal applications. They usually end up as some four or five letter acronym of the process or problem.  I’m sure others people have worked with application names like CAPS, MAPPS, TRAXS CRIMS and thought they suck.<p>So does anyone have a nice process for coming up with internal application names?
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AlexC04
I was a 'corporate giant' a number of years ago and developing internal
applications, and I always made a point of naming my applications with
absolutely ridiculous names.

A script for calculating the rate of employee attrition (voluntary departure)
in Human Resources was named the "Quantitative Attrition Calculator" or "QuAC"
for short. The icon was a duck.

I always had a laugh when they said the name - some got the joke and loved it,
which was great... but, even better was the one who "refused to be made a fool
of" and would always make a point of saying the letters. (Bless her :) )

Just last year, I had to write some Customer Relationship Management Software
- which brought back memories of Quac and I went with the name "Customer
Relationship Management Interface" or "CRMI" the logo was a frog and the
interface was green. It's not easy being green.

:)

My suggestion: make it as fun as you can.

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robgough
I once named a deployment system "Parachute".

Because, as with a parachute... we were f*cked if it didn't deploy properly.

A tenuous link, but we still laugh about it now. And because of that, you
would never forget what it actually does.

I can't believe no body has made this quote yet either...

"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and
naming things" - Phil Karlton

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percept
With internal applications you likely won't have concerns about domain name
availability, trademarks, etc., so how about a simple, plain English naming
scheme, e.g., "Timesheet," "Expenses," "Inventory"?

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timrobinson
There are often several systems being used concurrently that do the same
thing: either due to different departments reinventing the wheel, or by
somebody rewriting an application without retiring the previous one.

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percept
True, but that sounds like "security through obscurity" with regard to naming
conflicts--two departments could both invent the same acronym as easily as a
plain English equivalent (there must be a ton of "CMS" systems out there,
considering "case" and "content" management).

As always it's a people problem that requires communication and coordination
(and until that happens we're stuck with CLOTS, BUGR, and NIPL).

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timrobinson
Sets of animal names are always popular - I've worked with many Cobras and
Eagles. Fierce animals such as snakes and birds of prey seem to come up often,
particularly with business-facing applications.

My preferred technique is to come up with a catchy name, then derive a
backronym for it that has some kind of connection to the process or problem.
For instance, MACRAL could be the market and credit risk analysis library.

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_grrr
We once used the Latin names for constellations.

For example:

Pyxis -> "Compass"

Orion -> "Hunter"

There's usually a good mapping from the constellation name to a meta-feature
of the app, for example, a large bloated app might be called Cetus (the
whale).

<http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/const.html>

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zimro
I've used Star Wars planet names for quite a while, they sound good and most
of them are pretty easy to remember.

You should check Wikipedia's list:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_planets_(C%E2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_planets_\(C%E2%80%93D\))

~~~
willheim
So did Mozilla when they came out with "Bespin" as in the "Cloud" city. Ah...
so witty... immediately every Star Wars geek knew what they were doing.

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cosmicray
Wikipedia has a rather extensive list of greek mythological deities and
mortals. Surely there is something appropriate in there ...
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_mythological_figu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_mythological_figures)

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olalonde
I asked a similar question here
([http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/5887/how-do-you-
choo...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/5887/how-do-you-choose-
codenames-for-projects)). Hope it can help.

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arethuza
What about Culture Ship Names?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29>

Perhaps with acronyms for the longer ones e.g.

Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly (SAMWAF)

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dionysiac
It's an old one, but I still think of it every time someone is trying to come
up with an acronym: <http://dilbert.com/fast/1993-06-23/>

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bigohms
One syllable, funny-sounding abbreviations. When an entire org is saying,
writing, dreaming about the same thing -- make it memorable, efficient and as
fun as it can be.

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Deestan
Pick whatever naming scheme comes to mind, but something that vaguely relates
to the program's functionality + a degree of silliness makes the name easier
to remember.

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cryptoz
Moons of Saturn:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Saturn#Table_of_moons>

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developingJim
Pick from the Top Ten Deadliest Animals: Dart Frog, Cape Buffalo, etc. Had a
buddy who used names of Fender Guitars, boss wasn't as amused as us ;)

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madlep
Muppets. Current major app being worked on is called "Statler". There's
probably a "Waldorf" coming up as well in the future.

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fauigerzigerk
I found <http://wordoid.com> funny and useful for finding names.

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dalore
Our company is a Greek word so we tend to use Greek names/words.

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haploid
Sure. We usually come up with job titles describing the "human" equivalent of
what function the application performs; e.g:

The Warden - an set of scripts to manage chroot jailed workers

The Middleman - a heavily customized MQ/ESB

The Coxswain - an app that monitors/controls system components

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mdg
I name them after herbs

