
Why Naming Your Company Sucks - kirillzubovsky
http://asack.typepad.com/a_sack_of_seattle/2011/06/why-naming-your-company-sucks.html
======
ja27
How about generating a few hundred random words with Markov chains until you
find something you like?

<http://www.fourteenminutes.com/fun/words/>

~~~
wslh
I think it's good to have a combination. But to find a good name you need some
aesthetic appreciation.

------
gallerytungsten
I love naming companies. Of course, I've done it a bunch of times, so it's a
familiar process. For someone who is suddenly out of their comfort zone, I can
understand the frustration. A few tips:

1\. Before thinking of names, get meta. What's the company about, what would a
"good" name connote, what are the ideas the name should express? Write down a
narrative of all the awesome things the name should convey. If you're diligent
in following this recommendation, all kinds of new ideas will emerge.

2\. Say any potential names aloud. Do they roll off the tongue, or are they
awkward tongue twisters?

3\. Do your domain lookups via the command line, not some web site. It's been
suggested that domain lookup sites snatch your queries and register them.
True? I don't know; but you can't go wrong using Whois in your shell of
choice.

~~~
vrikhter
I'm having this problem now, could we connect offline? Your thinking could
bring me some clarity.

------
beej71
You could use a domain name generator for ideas, something like this:
<http://impossibility.org/>

baconyaks.com! In some spaces, people really don't care what the company is
called.

The more random the name, the more likely you are to be safe from trademarks,
as well.

------
gamble
Here's a tip: use the most obvious, phonetic (mis)spelling or you'll spend the
next X years spelling it out to every yahoo who needs your address.

Eg. 'segway' not 'segue'

~~~
elithrar
> Here's a tip: use the most obvious, phonetic (mis)spelling or you'll spend
> the next X years spelling it out to every yahoo who needs your address.

This is a great point. Making a "phonetically accessible" name is important,
especially so you can direct them to your site via word-of-mouth.

------
edcrfv
<http://wordoid.com> is a fun name generator if you want pronounceable words.

~~~
pg
Wordoid is very useful. Even if you don't find a name that works, it gives you
lots of ideas.

------
HRoark
I empathize with you. It took my team hours just to figure out a name for our
company. In fact, I think naming is one of the most challenging parts for
startups.

~~~
guptaneil
Hours isn't bad. We deliberated on names for days to find the perfect one. In
the end, we fell in love with a bastardized pronunciation of a foreign word.

I personally like using foreign words for inspiration because it's a good
combination of a real world to you and a mostly meaningless word to your first
market.

------
nt_mark
<http://nametoolkit.com> \- We use several of the mentioned approaches to
provide domain suggestions.

\- The "freshfunk" method of applying prefixes and suffixes, which we call
wordmixer (works well for one-word names).

\- Vowel/syllable replacement (phoneme)

\- Thesaurus (works best with word pairs)

\- domain hacks

\- ngrams (word pairs taken from a large corpus sorted by frequency
descending)

------
linead
The article is a little over-the-top on a few points. But this obviously stems
from the authors own difficulties in choosing a name. While your mileage may
vary if for examples you're choosing name in English, based upon a common
phrase or word you're going to be hard pressed to get the first name that pops
into your head.

I found it more disappointing that someone felt the need to "review" the blog
post in the comment stream for us. Even if you disagree with the post it would
be far nicer if you pointed in a nicer way and the fact that it 'landed on HN'
should indicate that the communicated is interested in the content.

Can anyone explain why there would be hostility against this particular
author? It seems a bit out of place in this community.

------
torlanco
After a long time deciding what to name our company, we finally chose 2
consonants, they could mean anything you chose.

We however spend much more time naming our products and web services.

------
dbro
There are two things that need to happen: 1) create a good idea for a name
that fits what you're offering to your visitors/customers 2) Check to see if
that name is available.

I built this domain name suggestion tool that does both of these instantly:
<http://domainjig.com>

In case you're wondering, it absolutely DOES NOT hijack or steal your ideas
and register your domain name behind your back.

------
MicahWedemeyer
Anyone else think it's actually a good idea to name your company the same as
your product?

In my case I gave up on the "company" name and instead printed business cards
with the product name on them. That's all that any of our users know anyway.

Seriously, do you think most Basecamp users have any idea who 37 Signals is?
Maybe they know Highrise and Campfire, but they probably think, "Yeah, those
are made by that Basecamp company."

~~~
JacobAldridge
It's a key strategic decision around the concept of 'Positioning' - do you
want to be positioned in the marketplace around your Product (Sprite, Fanta
etc) or your Company (McDonalds). Neither is better or worse, but it is a
decision to consider.

Remarkably, my grandmother calls McDonalds "Big Mac" ("as in, Jacob used to
work at Big Mac"), which is proof you can have a plan and make a decision but
you can't completely control how your customers view you.

------
freshfunk
Naming your company is easy. Just do the following!

\- append -ly, -able, -r, -up, -in, -on \- remove all vowels \- substitute k
for c unless it ends in -ck in which case just remove the c... or the k \-
take the last two letters and put them into the doma.in \- prepend with get-
or the- \- use a sound

And, if all those fail, just buy the domain you want with .net instead of .com
and buy the .com after you've raised some cash. ;P

------
devgeeks
Naming a band is the most dangerous part of a new band. I have had bands
nearly break up over it. Naming a startup is no easier.

------
mickdarling
Every hackathon or startup weekend I do I make sure people know about
<http://namechk.com> so they can check all the possible places you may want to
use a name. I am not connected with them at all, I just find it makes the
discussion on naming things go so much faster and smoother.

------
AretNCarlsen
Domain name: $25

Trademark search: $350

Invariably coming up with a better name six months later: priceless.

(I assume that doesn't only happen to me every time.)

~~~
dangrossman
Is there a reason to pay for a trademark search instead of using the USPTO
website's free trademark search? Or do you only pay for that after you've
already done the US search yourself?

~~~
AretNCarlsen
USPTO states that their trademark database is NOT a superset of the state-
level registrations and common law marks: <http://tess2.uspto.gov/>

At the least, you also need to check each of the 50 state-level PTDLs. USPTO
has a list by state:
[http://www.uspto.gov/products/library/ptdl/locations/index.j...](http://www.uspto.gov/products/library/ptdl/locations/index.jsp)

The other theoretical benefit of a professional search is that they are
expected to research _similar_ marks as well, taking advantage of their legal
expertise to determine how similar is _too_ similar. (I emphasize
'theoretical'.)

------
A-K
Domain sitting in particular throws a wrench in what's already a consuming
enough process. I'm hesitant to admit how much time I've spent thinking about
names (versus time spent thinking about core features, supplementary details,
future plans, etc).

------
asack
Thanks for all the comments. And I'm glad to have this naming exercise behind
me. I'm writing another post about the process and will give you details on
tools I used.

------
jmitcheson
You could try to go backwards - check out a list of expiring domains and see
if any match your market ;)

<http://www.namejet.com/>

------
pitdesi
Totally agree. Here was our process: <http://startup-stella.com/?p=116>

------
pellias
If name is taken up or trademarked, why not call it - TheXXX then when you've
become a billion dollar company, name it the way you want: XXX.

If it doesn't become a billion dollar company, then the name does not matter.

