
Ask HN: How do you come up with a good name for a startup? - rayalez
It always takes me forever to come up with a cool name for a project. I have a couple of projects that are already almost complete, but not having a good enough idea for a name is holding me back.<p>Any tips&#x2F;advice on coming up with a cool names?
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ymse
Paul Graham has done a couple of pieces on naming things.

[http://aux.messymatters.com/pgnames.html](http://aux.messymatters.com/pgnames.html)
(2006)

And later this from 2015:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html)

The gist of it is that anything will do, as the name will be associated with
your product, not the other way around. Hopefully this can boost your
confidence a bit :)

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id122015
I have too many ideas and too many names but no time to implement all of them.
Currently Im working at one of them. And sometimes I have too many names for
the same idea, and its tragic because I cant have two domains for the same
app, or cant write a book and give it two titles.

My head is a fountain, sometimes I get up from bed by 11pm or 1am to write
down that name, and I filled two pages of a notebook with such names and
ideas. Not to mention that in the last ten years I bought many domain names
but at that time I didnt have advanced skills. So I told you how I come up
with ideas, they come to me at any time. I think its part of personality, just
like some others dont have the skills to program. I can help you if you need
with names, I dont steal ideas, and ideas are hard to sell.

And to give you some choices: you can either give it a common name or
something unique. I think the latter one is for really creative types. You d
like to be a Spotify, not a HackerNewsify.

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sopooneo
Get help. If you are a programmer, odds are that you are not also a wordsmith
or branding genius. Like the CEO who gets stuck on his own idea for a logo, or
the store owner who can't give up on the pun she thought of for her product
category, the tech entrepreneur should not overestimate his strengths in other
areas.

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twright
1\. Take a word that encapsulates the project in some way.

2\. Translate it into other languages and find a cooler one. [1]

optional: Use wikitionary to verify the translation and possibly change the
tense.

[1] [http://translatr.varunmalhotra.xyz/](http://translatr.varunmalhotra.xyz/)

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iDemonix
I don't think there's any guaranteed way, and you have to remember that cool
is a perception.

I find the best way for me is to just write down a whole bunch of words
describing what I'm doing, then sit with someone and brainstorm, constantly
checking domai.nr to see if the domain is free.

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akg_67
I found this Moz blog post to be valuable in coming up with a cool name for
project and making sure domain name is available.

How to Hack a Dominating Domain Name for Your Website
[https://moz.com/blog/domain-name-hacks](https://moz.com/blog/domain-name-
hacks)

I usually check domain names and twitter handle before settling on a name. I
prefer hybrid names - combination of two words that encompasses the domain of
the project and makes sense for the startup.

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q3q3q3q3
Take a random word, add rrrrr and buy a io domain.

result: wordrrrr.io

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canterburry
No, no, no....you are doing it all wrong. You find the shortest verb
describing what you do and add 'ly' after it.

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odonnellryan
It's very easy to brainstorm. Literally write down 100 things on paper without
thinking about what you're writing. Just write as many words/terms as you can
as quickly as you can, and don't review until after.

Some will be absolutely silly, but it will get your mind into that creative
mode it needs to be in.

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tmaly
I always go with a name that makes it somewhat obvious what the startup is
about. i.e. my current side projects bestfoodnearme or nextlesson you can
somewhat tell what these are about.

When I have to pitch the idea to someone or get someone to spread the word,
this extra bit of obviousness helps.

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analognoise
Buy a dictionary, read it. Buy a thesaurus, read it.

Brute force.

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Taylor_OD
Add one word with another word.

RocketHat

Panfish

Lookcart

Rightsee

Tookway

Just dont use Rocket. I've seen about 100 Rocket____ based names recently.

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tenismyanswer
Pick up a dictionary. Choose a short word. E.g. Slack, Uber, Kindle, Valve,
etc.

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swah
Remove vowels and add R to the end.

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tenismyanswer
That's sooo last decade.

