“Startup Names” by Paul Graham (2006) (opens in new tab)

It's called onomastics, son. Now get off my lawn.

It can be quite tough - and I ran into the naming problem many times over the years. Over 100,000,000 com domains are registered, iirc. It reached the point where I would spend days trying to come up with something that was a) good and b) available.

Frankly, I ended up feeling that finding a good name for a new project of mine was quite unlikely to happen. Which lead me the idea that the only way I'd be able to find usable (let alone high quality) names was by making a tool to help make it easier.

So I built Namebird - http://shobia.com/namebird

For it, I came up with a variety of probability based algorithims to generate names that are catchy and memorable. It works pretty nicely, imo. And, in making it, it has been able to help me find a large amount of domain names that would be good for startups.

Perhaps some here might find it of value.

    FragrantDuck
    CourteousOwl
    RecklessPig
    OtherMoose
    CaringFrog
    MindlessFish
    UpbeatLizard
    WhisperedHippo
    SlushyWhale
    OilyAccountant
    CompassionateHog
    InstructiveMonkey
    ForkedCow
    ...

EVOC - neutral. Fogbeam is evocative of something to do with light and illumination, so if we were a LED bulb manufacturer or something, it would be good. But we're using it as a metaphor, since we're a software company focusing on knowledge management, integration and collaboration. I think our tagline/slogan plays ties it together though "Cut through the information fog".

BREV - I think we're good here.

GREP - Yep.

GOOG - Very much. There are very few other references to the phrase "fogbeam" and the few there are relate to something obviously different - bulbs for auto fog lamps, etc.

PRON - Yep.

SPEL - Yep.

VERB - Fail. I don't think anybody will ever say "Go fogbeam that" to anybody else. :-(

For the most part, we get a lot of positive comments on the name when we introduce ourselves to people, so all in all, that's one decision that has worked out well. I don't think our name is so special that it will cause us to succeed all on it's own (could any name do that?) but I think it's more than good enough to not be an impediment.

What do you guys think?

http://www.youos.com/html/static/manifesto.html

... was there a time it wasn't. Love that. Love reddit.

Also, dotomator can be useful for generating ideas. http://www.dotomator.com/

I went through a couple of namegenerators and I found bustaname.com to be the best of the lot - specially it's realtime domain availability check (.com/.org/.net)

Pair it with namechk.com to check availability of social media handles.

If you are looking for random 4/5/6 letter domains that might be available (mostly sedo) then domainnamesoup.com is at it - eg: http://www.domainnamesoup.com/5letterdomainnames.php

cuil.com had its 15 minutes of fame, but I see that Google acquired their patents and domain names:

http://searchengineland.com/googler-killer-cuil-patent-appli...

http://whois.domaintools.com/cuil.com

http://whois.domaintools.com/cuil.net

I genuinely felt embarrassed when I explained to them that the majority of startups etc have "silly" names. As I was talking about Anorak to them, every time I said it's name, I felt silly.

And yet, it's never bothered me before.

I'm not changing the name, but it made me realise.

Check it out: http://montanaflynn.me/lab/startup-name-generator/

The trademark application process, at its core, is simple data collection. Sadly, the TM Office website complicates this simple process with a set of baffling forms. Their design philosophy is “more but worse.” Only 40% of DIY apps are approved, so a TM lawyer is recommended. But if you're going to go DIY, just gird yourself for a miserable user experience.

Then again, what you make of the name also matters.

Selfishly curious, how would you rate my company's name, Modea?

That is a fact I've condemned about Stack Exchange and their founders on Meta.

Interestingly enough, that domain name is for sale.

Example, sewage => Sewg