Brainstorming Names

Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 7:59 AM | Category: Business, Language, Marketing, Meryl's Notes Blog 2 comments

I love brainstorming ideas for a new company name. I guess you could call me a name freak. icon smile Brainstorming Names Every case is different, but here are the basic tips I tend to follow when hunting for inspiration:

* Randomly flip through the dictionary.

* Take words and mixing or subbing letters.

* Say names out loud.

* Pick a handful of words and use them with other words, prefixes or suffixes.

* Open an atlas and look around the world for name ideas.

* Use RhymeZone, which provides more than just rhymes.

* Use the Internet Anagram Server.

* Enter words in domain name and check out the suggested names (www.namedroppers.com, www.domaintools.com, and www.nameboy.com.

* Based on the business type or industry, search the industry and see what words come up. Play with those.

* Look at competitors or browse existing names that fit in the customer’s requirements and see what comes up.

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2 comments

  • Posted by Johnny2Bad on May 13th, 2006, 10:17 AM

    One caution about using a domain name search: don’t do it when brainstorming a name, and don’t use it as a tool during an intermediate step in choosing a name.

    Never search a domain name you actually want, in other words, unless you are going to buy the name you search, and it’s valuable variants (misspelled, com, org, etc) immediately.

    Why? Because every name you search and do not buy will be registered within 24 hours or less, and you will have to pay the parker a very inflated price for it.

    That you are querying a name is obvious, but how that search is actually done is not so obvious. The search process queries thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of domain name registrars for info as to whether they have that name registered. Many of these registrars will immediately buy any name they are queried about; you have an opportunity, usually of buying the name if the search comes up clean. Do it, or the renegade registrar will buy it instead, meaning you will have to buy it from him if, say, a day later you decide it’s a good one.

    Just a helpful word of warning. Regards.

  • Posted by Marcia Yudkin on May 14th, 2006, 5:58 PM

    I don’t think this is true, because I have rechecked domains a week later that I had checked for a naming client and none of the names we had checked were registered.

    Besides which, it doesn’t answer the question of how on earth one is supposed to check which domains are free… without checking!

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