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Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

#11

Post by ericb »

I go to thesaurus.com and try mutilating synonyms of what I want to convey. I mash word combos together, along with substituting similar sounding made up syllables. If you tell me what you're working on and want to convey, I'll take a crack at it. I bet others on here will too. Some examples of my creations (I've only paid a squatter once):

Testomatix: test + automation + "ix" added in for high-tech-soundiness and anti-domain-squatter non-obviousness.

RentRocket: I loved the alliteration, and got it cheap.

Wincognito: (privacy software and pop-up blocker for windows back before they were free) win + incognito

Ziptuck:(fashion site) I have a theory that similar known names "prime" the mind to remember other like names. (Osama, Obama, Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton) and that the other associations of the 'original name' disappear quickly, so I went with it.

Edit: Also, I suggest moniker's bulk lookup: http://www.moniker.com/domains/batch_reg.jsp

Re: Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

#13

Post by bmaier »

1.) always do your domain searches on http://www.internic.net/whois.html so you can be sure that they're not being registered as you search for them.

2.) Read http://www.thenameinspector.com from beginning to end

3.) Come up with words that describe your ideas then use thesaurus.com

4.) Look to chop words down by syllables and then combine. ie. a personal bookmarking service or online profile service that was described as "my highlights" would become mylights.com.

Re: Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

#14

Post by ericb »

bmaier wrote: post #13

1.) always do your domain searches on http://www.internic.net/whois.html so you can be sure that they're not being registered as you search for them. 2.) Read http://www.thenameinspector.com from beginning to end 3.) Come up with words that describe your ideas then use thesaurus.com 4.) Look to chop words down by syllables and then combine. ie. a personal bookmarking service or online profile service that was describ…

I agree overall, although Moniker's batch lookup is much faster, IMHO.

http://www.moniker.com/domains/batch_reg.jsp

Re: Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

#16

Post by kn0thing »

We knew the site would involve reading what's new online, so I would spend classtime thinking about domains involving something like "read." It was also during this classtime that I first doodled the alien in the corner of a notebook.

I was in my beloved Alderman library when "reddit" came to mind, as in "I reddit on reddit" (although this slogan was courtesy of PG). I'd also registered reditt because I couldn't decide which one was better. Granted, I was worried about how poorly it was spelled, but it seemed easy enough to remember.

For a time, it was just added to a long list of potential names. We spent the first month of YC without a confirmed name, but I always stuck with reddit despite being repeatedly told how terrible a name it was :-)

Finally Steve acquiesced and we went with reddit. This was after wasting a solid 2 entire days just hunting for domains -- not a great use of time, I must say.

It was also before instantdomainsearch.com, which I highly recommend.

Re: Ask YC: How did you choose a name for your startup?

#20

Post by edw519 »

Opened a text document on my Palm Pilot. (You could use any computer, but I always have my Palm with me.) Every time I had an idea, I appended it to the end. Every once in a while, I sorted them into "most desirable" sequence. After a year or so, I noticed that the same name was at the top of the list for the previous 3 months. It won.

(It's also amazing to see how bad some of your ideas look a week later.)

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