This post seems to miss three important considerations: trademarks, domains & "spellability". With respect to trademarks, it's worth taking a few minutes on uspto.gov to understand the trademark landscape of your potential name. Secondly, with respect to domains, it's worth assessing how much your desired name will cost you. It is very rare to find a half-way decent name that has not been registered, but many are either not being used or in the hands of squatters. For a few thousand you can get a decent name. When your desired name is in the hands of squatters, and you don't have the cash, I suggest using something like "getDESIREDNAME" or "DESIREDNAMEapp".....if the service succeeds you will have the cash to purchase the domain. Again, you want to ensure going in that your desired name is not already being used in the same manner that you intend to use it. On the final point, if someone can't spell your name after hearing it, it's a fail. Flickr is not the exception that disproves this rule.
Looking at Bvckup then w/ these considerations in mind, yes the trademark is available and so was the domain, but on the third count it fails. My 2 cents.
First two points - fully agreed. I should've mentioned the domain name availability, it is indeed the first coarse filter for rejecting name candidates.
> if someone can't spell your name after hearing it, it's a fail.
Practically speaking - why is it a fail? Who are the prospective users that I am going to loose over this?
>> if someone can't spell your name after hearing it, it's a fail.
>Practically speaking - why is it a fail? Who are the prospective users that I am going to loose over this?
I'd modify this slightly - I can't say it after reading it. "B-vuck up"? Sounds ugly and is not consistent with other English word forms. It's not only that it's hard for people to communicate but also it may be hard for people to internalise. How do you read it's name - I simply skip over the name, it makes reading copy with the name in it disjointed.
Now, this could work for you if your product is strong enough - if the product has a global brand behind it then I can see people going "sheesh ACME Corp's new product, have you heard the name ..." and this actually gaining you some mindshare. You'd simply pronounce it "backup" and people would know that ACME Corp spell backup with a funny A.
Other than that I personally go with this as a name fail.
> Every single person who hears about it on TV or radio
That's not "practically speaking". If I ever to get a TV coverage, that'd be of TWiT or similar, and I'm sure Leo can manage to pronounce it and follow-up with the URL on the screen.
Looking at Bvckup then w/ these considerations in mind, yes the trademark is available and so was the domain, but on the third count it fails. My 2 cents.