4 ms·
Ask HN: How do you come up with a good name for a startup?
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.
Any tips/advice on coming up with a cool names?
- q3q3q3q3 10y agoTake a random word, add rrrrr and buy a io domain. result: wordrrrr.io
- HNcow 10y agoYou forgot to remove the vowel.
- canterburry 10y agoNo, no, no....you are doing it all wrong. You find the shortest verb describing what you do and add 'ly' after it.
- iDemonix 10y agoI 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.
- twright 10y ago1. 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/
- ymse 10y agoPaul 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 :)
- Taylor_OD 10y agoAdd one word with another word. RocketHat Panfish Lookcart Rightsee Tookway Just dont use Rocket. I've seen about 100 Rocket____ based names recently.
- tmaly 10y agoI 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.
- analognoise 10y agoBuy a dictionary, read it. Buy a thesaurus, read it. Brute force.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sopooneo 10y agoGet 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.
- akg_67 10y agoI 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.
- id122015 10y agoI 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.
- odonnellryan 10y agoIt'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.
- swah 10y agoRemove vowels and add R to the end.
- tenismyanswer 10y agoThat's sooo last decade.
- tenismyanswer 10y agoPick up a dictionary. Choose a short word. E.g. Slack, Uber, Kindle, Valve, etc.