Comments on: Naming your startup

By: Joshua Maher

Joshua Maher — Mon, 16 May 2011 03:07:00 +0000

We had the name inspector out at the last TechCafe, he had some great insight into naming…

http://www.npost.com/techcafe/2011/05/12/naming-your-startup/

By: Domain Jig

Domain Jig — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:51:00 +0000

for help brainstorming and checking availability, I created http://www.domainjig.com which instantly suggests related words (synonyms, rhymes, etc), and checks to see if the domain name has been taken. Hope you like it!

By: Dave Pinsen

Dave Pinsen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:52:00 +0000

I got lucky with one of my domain names: ShortScreen.com -- two syllables, easy to spell, relevant to one of the functions of the site (screening for stocks to short). The other one, Portfolio Armor, is a little long (six syllables), and not as easy to spell as I figured (some try the British spelling of the second word), but it does sort of roll off the tongue, and is relevant to the main function of the site (hedging).

By: Dave Pinsen

Dave Pinsen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:44:00 +0000

It’s not though, because a lot of folks won’t immediately be able to spell it upon hearing it.

By: awaldstein

awaldstein — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Great post with some good guidelines.

But pre and post reading this, naming companies and products is still a big beast to tame.

And sometimes you never really know if you’ve hit it right till much much later.

By: FinanceTutor

FinanceTutor — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:01:00 +0000

yes, wonder how del.icio.us even survived. I had to look again to even type it!

By: Joe Lazarus

Joe Lazarus — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:46:00 +0000

A bunch of good parked domains can be bought for a few grand. Just don’t let them know you’re a VC-backed company (if you are). If money’s tight, get creative. One of my favorite tricks is to use partial phrases related to your service. A few examples I bought from GoDaddy for $10: LastButNot.com (Last.fm mashup), HighOf.com (weather site), HereComesThe.com (considered for my wedding site).

By: Christopher Kahle

Christopher Kahle — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:58:00 +0000

Great post from the archives Chris, thanks for tweeting it! I must’ve went through 5 pages of pages before we landed on our startup name. Without any money to spend on a URL, it gets really hard fast. We still couldn’t hit on every single qualifier, but I think as long as you get most of these things you listed checked off your list you’ll be okay.

We shared some of our pages of names on our blog. Fun to see how all over the place things get get when exploring:

http://dossyay.tumblr.com/tagged/notebook

By: Username Check

Username Check — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:42:00 +0000

It is also a good idea to see if your new name is available as a username at most of the top social media sites – http://namechk.com. If you can’t get the twitter account etc. it can really hurt your branding.

By: Tweets that mention Naming your startup cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog -- Topsy.com

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:26:16 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Maurício Maia. Maurício Maia said: @cdixon Your blog even helped me pick an project name http://bit.ly/cjOLNZ Thanks for blogging! [...]

By: Jay Gould

Jay Gould — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:30:45 +0000

And then there’s del.icio.us

By: gzizzle

gzizzle — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:34:28 +0000

portmanteau. now there’s a name!