

Ask HN: Naming My Startup - dschmidt11

I have put myself under a great deal of pressure and mental blocks when trying to come up with a name for my start up. Is the name the first impression or the users first experience using the site? Should the name describe the site functionality or should it evoke an emotional response?
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steventruong
While there are some generic rules for brandability, majority of naming issues
boils down to personal issues founders have with liking or disliking a name.
Many startups have funky names until it becomes known. Don't get too caught up
on this.

As long as you can get the .com, it easy to spell, relatively short enough,
and people can pronounce it, and it isn't trademarked or going to infringe on
any such issue, you're more than halfway towards an okay name.

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keiferski
I run a naming company, and you might find our methodology and case studies
pages useful:

<http://nomvilla.com/methodology>

<http://nomvilla.com/case-studies>

As far as your specific questions go:

1) The name _is_ the first impression when someone sees the site via other
media; i.e. a news article, or word-of-mouth, or an email. It _can be_ the
first impression when someone visits your site, but the logo and general
design of the site can be the immediate first thing. In either case, the name
is in the top 5 things a user first notices, and like a horrific site design,
a really bad name can turn off some users.

2) The best possible scenario is an emotional company name with a descriptive
product name. Apple: human, small, unlike cold, sterile computer companies of
the time. iPhone: descriptive and straightforward. iMac: likewise.

If you don't have a separate company and product name, try to pick something
that's in the middle. Don't be overly descriptive, but still try to have the
name relate to your company, even in a tangential way.

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hsuresh
Name is important to some extent. Ease of remembering, easy to spell and its
association to your service/product/app are all some factors.

Here is how i go about finding names:

* Start with a list of nouns/names that you think your product should be called. Put it in a spreadsheet.

* Use a service like <http://impossibility.org/> to find domain names that are available and related to your list.

* Keep iterating it over a week/10 day period. I am sure you will stumble upon good names.

Don't over try. Use a codeword till you find a good name. Also, ask for
opinions from a couple of people.

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ModOne
I often use a mind mapping exercise. You start with a word that's central to
your product or service and then branch out with words that spring to mind.
You'll be surprised by how the associated words in your thought cloud will
bring forth great imagery. Additionally, this exercise is great for logo
design ideas.

Just be sure whatever you come up with is easy to spell and recall. Also, your
name strategy should be 'future oriented'. If you should pivot will your name
still work? Think ahead of how your product & services may evolve over time.

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launchplus
This article by Rich Barton might be helpful for you to come up with a name
for your startup.

[http://hopperanddropper.com/syllables-scrabble-letters-
and-p...](http://hopperanddropper.com/syllables-scrabble-letters-and-picking-
brand-names/)

But generally, I would agree that you should just spend some time on it, and
move on to focus on building your product and getting it out to market fast to
validate your assumptions and business model.

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debacle
For us, it was ~5 lunch meetings where one of us wrote down all of the ideas
the other had for ~10 minutes, then we switched.

We finally decided that naming the company was too hard and we were just going
to go back to our day jobs (I'm exaggerating, but only slightly).

We decided to back-burner it for a day or two, and the next night while I was
playing D&D I came up with the name.

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Udo
I think naming he startup is by far not as important as naming your product
(except of course if they are identical). It's probably a good idea to choose
a name that helps people understand what it does. But I wouldn't stress out
about it, getting the actual product ready to ship is the only really
important thing. If your naming goes horibly wrong, you can always change it
later.

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cgarmstrong
I'm not sure how important it is overall. Focus more on starting to ship
stuff. There are tons of companies with weird names.

~~~
amac
I'd agree with this. Choose something you're happy with, you might end up only
starting a business once.

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helen842000
I think the main thing is if you say it out loud, can people spell it
correctly first time with no prompting from you?

If you shout out a few potential names to friends/family - if they start
producing random mis-spellings, cross it off your list.

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Mz
Spend some time on this but don't get mired in it.

Two sides:

On the one hand, I spent enormous time dreaming up a name for a business. I
then registered it with the county, bought the domain name, and blah blahblah.
It never resulted in the first sale.

On the other hand, I spent five years working for a Fortune 500 company which
has changed it's name twice, once on "a gentleman's coin toss".

The right name has some value (or Bigco wouldn't have changed it) but as
others have said you need to worry more about getting customers first.

Best of luck.

