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How to Name your Company

judegomila.com

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Re: How to Name your Company

#41

Post by dpark »

mise wrote: post #37

We struggle with our name: Bitesize Irish Gaelic. It's a language learning tool. The Irish language is called "Irish" in Ireland, but often "Gaelic" elsewhere (depending on who you're speaking with). The name we've ended up with is a mouthful of a compromise :) I don't know if there's a fix for that...

Your name is fine for the product. If you went with just "Bitesize Irish" or "Bitesize Gaelic", you'd likely be much more confusing to a big chunk of your target market.

"Bitesize Irish Gaelic" isn't great as a company name because it's so narrow, but "Bitesize" is a good name if you want to expand to other languages at some point. I don't know what you'd have to pay for the domain, but it's probably available since it's just parked right now.

Re: How to Name your Company

#42

Post by minimax »

smickie wrote: post #35

Lots of people are pulling Airbnb up on their name, but I think it's great: Air = air travel, BnB = Bed and breakfast I'm not sure if some people don't know what it means because it might be a British colloquialism or whether it's totally unintentional Airbnb's part.

Airbnb is an iteration on the company's original name, which was "AirBed and Breakfast." The idea was (and I think still is) that there is a ton of unused potential "capacity" in terms of empty couches and inflatable mattresses (airbeds) that people could offer for rent if given the opportunity.

Re: How to Name your Company

#43

Post by OldSchool »

Keep in mind these things change like fashion and it depends if you're selling to consumers or business.

You'll also want to be sure that the name appeals to your target audience or you risk it being liked only by clones of yourself, which are likely to be few.

Re: How to Name your Company

#46

Post by bsimpson »

I disagree about the vagueness of a name. If I see a great name, I'll understand the point-of-view of the company (usually, a key element of their product or audience). If the company pivots so much that the name becomes detracting, they can always rebrand later: "NewProduct by NoLongerRelevantName" eventually becomes just "NewProduct".

Re: How to Name your Company

#47

Post by InfinityX0 »

Something missing here: SEO considerations. It matters less as the days pass, but there is still value to getting an important keyword or two in the domain name (or to be the important keyword, better still).

This is especially true if your business is planning to generate lots of business through organic. Especially false if it doesn't.

Re: How to Name your Company

#48

Post by dreeves »

bduerst wrote: post #25
dreeves wrote: post #10

Great points! But just to list more counterexamples, from another Hacker News thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3181272 I'm pretty pleased with my own similar essay on this topic, which I called "Nominology": http://messymatters.com/nominology

Speaking of defining names, "Nominology" comes across as the study of eating .

You're thinking of nomnomology. :)

Re: How to Name your Company

#50

Post by ndepoel »

Golden tip: go and play some Wordfeud. You'll come up with tons of nonsensical abstract words and names that have an interesting sound to them while trying to place your letters. I'll bet you some of those would make for great company names.
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