

Ask HN: Which is the best name for a food web application - leeHS

The current name of our food/recipe web application is:<p>deadgrandmacookies.com<p>As you might imagine, this name is rather polarizing.  People either love it or hate it. We made sure to explain on the site why we chose this name, but it hasn't helped.<p>So do we keep this name (controversy can be good, right?).  Or change it.<p>Here are some alternatives we've been tossing around:<p>food scraps, beetroots, cabbage tales, bitter pear, beef cookies, the broccoli chronicles, 
food baby, grandmas cookies, my grandmas cookies, old grandma cookies
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egiva
Well, polarizing it might be but I'm just going to give you a few pointers:

a) the shorter the name for your website, the better.

b) the name should be memorable.

c) it should imply some sort of concept or personality central to your
business.

d) "deadgrandmacookies" is not the best name because visually, it's hard to
distinguish the different words due to length and lexography. Also (more
importantly), the emphasis for the reader is on the first concept "dead
grandmas" rather than on food, so you're strongly suggesting that the topic is
grandma-related, rather than food related. The first thing that jumps out
should be a positive message, and related to your topic.

e) choose a maximum of two words, like your "food baby" example.

f) if you're on a budget, one strategy is to research keywords related to your
cooking topic, and try to register a website name that is also a main keyword.
This allows you to "own" that topic much more easily on Google, Yahoo
searches, etc. Example: "Food Baby" would be a great website for baby food
(the word order doesn't matter).

TOP GOAL FOR BRANDING: If you have a larger budget, a short, invented word is
the ultimate goal in branding your product - generic names can not be
trademarked, so your concept can easily be copied. It's harder to get started,
but in the long run a unique, branded name is the best if you have a budget.
Example: QUANTAS is a made-up word (acronym) for an airline brand, it's short,
memorable and suggests luxury, which is important to their core customer base.

Hope this helps! Cheers - J

~~~
leeHS
That really helped. Thanks! It's looking more and more like we're going to
change the name. It's too bad because I really liked the current name. I think
I enjoyed the shock value, and thought it would be a good thing.

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onan_barbarian
'Polarizing' seems to be your code phrase to explain 'why we keep relentlessly
trolling with this name, in the hope that all publicity is good publicity'.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2920777>

~~~
leeHS
Actually I submitted it twice! :) I've never submitted a website to HN, so
when I first did it, I was disappointed to see it plummet after about 5
minutes with no comments. So I tried again later in the day (which is the link
you provided), and I received about a half dozen comments, many of them
regarding the name. We've also submitted through feedbackarmy.com and have had
similar negative comments about the name. So I figured I would ask HN what
they thought. I'm sorry if you think I've done something wrong here.

~~~
onan_barbarian
I don't think you're gaming HN specifically. I just think you know perfectly
well that the name isn't a good idea and are trying to milk the 'polarization'
for a tiny bit of attention.

I mean, seriously? Dead Grandma? "Shock value", for a cooking site? I'm
optimistically assuming that you're just _playing_ dumb.

~~~
leeHS
I guess I must be dumb. I've been a Forensic Scientist for the last decade, so
morbid humor does nothing to me.

