Ask HN: Tips for coming up with a new web startup name

We are planning to launch a new startup in the next few months but are having difficulty finding an available domain name. What process do you go through when trying to come up with a name for your startup?

There's a ton of info on the web. Google things like "picking a brand name", etc.

From a trademark perspective, you don't want to be "books.com" - it's too generic.

From a mindshare perspective, you also don't want to be "wrejiorgsdf.com".

The sweet spot is just off-center of the topic. E.g. Amazon - the world's biggest bookstore. Your brand is distinct from (and hence more memorable than) the thing you sell, but it is EVOCATIVE of a trait that you are bragging about.

Many folks go with Latin and Greek roots (because they are the basis of much of English) to play the "evocation" game.

The names of my two startups are decent ,but not insanely great.

SmartFlix - the "smart" brings out the educational component (and also reassures customers that it's a wise decision to rent a video from us), and Flix has been a synonym for movies for almsot a century.

HeavyInk - the "ink" references the artwork and the history of comics, and "heavy" has a slight outsiderish / authentic connotation (heavy metal, "deep" , "profound", etc.) that also helps make the subtle point that we carry every comic that's available (far more than your typical bricks and mortar store).

And, of course, the important thing is that both domains were available in the .com TLD.

Travis J I Corcoran, President SmartFlix

-- http://SmartFlix.com/ web's biggest how-to DVD rental store

Voted up bc I'd like to know, too.

I'm also in the process of finding a name and so far it's been both painful and fruitless. I've tried to look for Greek and Latin names but most of those I tried were already taken.

I even used a Hawaiian online dictionary: http://wehewehe.org/ but again haven't come up with something decent. Hawaiian can sound pretty childish very easily...

Man, that's one of the painful parts. Lots of time, lots of thinking, and lots of reading through dictionaries for Greek/Latin origins of words.

Then, the name just hits me.

This is, I think, great advice. I'll add my thoughts because I think there are a couple of other things to think about. This comes after doing one project with a name I now hate (Openomy) -- even though I love the story behind it -- and with having just named a second project.

* SEO. Along with the fact that being too generic means you won't have access to good trademark protection, it also means that you'll never get anywhere in search results. A fantastic amount of people still type the name of what they're looking for into Google (instead of just .com). So, if your bookstore is named "Books", you'll never be found. That's not a battle you likely need when first starting.

However, if you run a site that is going to depend on Google (search engines) for traffic, you also might want to think hard about including some terms people will search for into your domain. Search engines weigh domain names heavily, so it does help. You can overcome this by getting linked to early and often, but if you really need Google, you might want to think about this.

The flip side is that using a made up word will ensure you are the _only_ result in Google and don't have to fight for position. So, if you're planning on getting your traffic elsewhere, don't want to focus on SEO, and just want to ensure that you are at the top for your name, making up a word can be good.

* Spell-able. Making up names leads me into my second thought. If you make it up -- or even if you don't but it's not a commonly known word -- make sure it is spelled how it sounds. Think about Google. Correct spelling: Googol; but no one would've ever done that correctly.

Openomy was the perfect example of what not to do. No one has any idea how to pronounce this word correctly, let alone spell it. Links would get botched, people couldn't get to the site, every time I talked to someone about it they would ask "how do you pronounce it", etc.

3. Don't be afraid of prefixes/suffixes. With domain availability running thinner every day, you will have to be creative. This will probably mean some combination of splicing words together (NetFlix) or using prefixes/suffixes. Don't be afraid of this, just careful. Some suffixes I like are -ly, -ware, -ish, -ize, -er, -it.

4. Talk about it and sleep on it. The way I came up with my latest project name is by writing down all the words that I could think of which were either directly or indirectly related with the field, as well as all the prefixes and suffixes I could remember. Then I went to town coming up with combinations of these things until I found a few I liked. I took that short list to my partner and we decided on one. We preemptively bought the domain name, but we didn't necessarily settle on it. We kept using it as our "name", making sure that even a few days later we liked it. Sleeping on it and using it as if it were real, without being religious about it, helps ensure you actually like it.

Then I started asking a couple friends/family about it. (1) Did they like it, (2) could they spell it for me, (3) what did it mean to them? If you can pass these tests, and you're happy, you've probably found a decent name.