5 tools for naming your startup
Naming your business is hard. Before you give up and just slap an .io behind a word that’s vaguely related to what you do, give these tools a try for coming up with a fun, original name.
Rhymezone
Rhyming words or parts of words is a great place to start brainstorming. Even if you’re not going for a rhyming name (like the brilliantly named StubHub), finding rhymes is still useful for idea generation.
Rhymezone is easy to use and gives good, readable results. Try words related to your business, or single syllables in those words. You’ll be surprised with what comes up.
The Free Dictionary (Idioms)
Idioms are common phrases which are greater than the sum of their parts, holding meaning that goes beyond their normal dictionary definitions. A fat cat, for example, evokes more than just the image of an overweight feline. A cat might also play a game of cat and mouse, or it might get your tongue.
Maybe you want to call your feline health insurance startup Nine Lives. Or maybe you want to name your cat-walking service When the cat’s away. Whatever the business, idioms are there to help.
The Free Dictionary conveniently presents an “Idioms” tab for many of its definitions. Use it to find dozens of examples for a single word. (If you think cat has a ton, try dog.)
Wikipedia’s list of animals
Need a relatable symbol for your abstract, tech-heavy business? Just pick an animal: Wikipedia has a handy list of recognizable and well-known animals. There are plenty left to use in the startup world.
Mailchimp has used this strategy to great effect. The formula really can be as simple as Animal + What you do.
Urban Dictionary
After you’ve picked a name, you absolutely need to run it by Urban Dictionary. Your business name could be a slang sex or drug term, or something even worse like a racial slur. Urban Dictionary will tell you what your name already means and, perhaps more importantly, where it means those things.
The only other way to find this out is at conferences, when people giggle every time they hear your name. It’s better to hear it from Urban Dictionary before you’ve handed out 300 business cards.
Domai.nr
Often the hardest part of finding a name is finding the domain to go with it. Domai.nr is a trusted, established tool that gives you quick results. Perhaps more importantly, it gives you useful alternatives when your main pick is inevitably taken.
The .com does still matter, though. Don’t listen to people who say otherwise. They’ve been saying it doesn’t matter since the late 90s, when they convinced thousands of people not to register those amazing three-, four- and five-letter domain names.
Try as hard as you can to get a name and its corresponding .com domain.
If your name is otherwise compelling, however, you can settle for having something besides a .com for your Internet presence. Just make sure your search presence is solid and you should be alright.
Cat photo thanks to Flickr user zaimoku_woodpile