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Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#11
post #6

Ok so I went through a whole thing for this with my snail simulation. Usually naming stuff is pretty easy for me but...well, it is hard to make a snail simulation sound interesting and cool (because it's not). But I sure as hell was going to try! One of my big rules was that I didn't want it to sound too _gamey_. This is a _simulation_, not a _game_. I also wanted it to sound kind of unique. The other thing is...the…

SimulatingSnails Gastropodasim would never be the name of my choice.

The domain name was gastropodasim. The name was Gastropoda. SimulatingSnails is too long and sound more like an instructional project site rather than the name of a simulation to me, but thanks for the suggestion. I prefer SnailLife.

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#15
Hey, first time commenting in HN...let's hope i don't break any rules :) We spent 5+ months thinking about different names & brainstormed literally for hours. You can find lots of good idea generators & checks for domains, social, etc here: http://startupstash.com/

We tried lots of languages (Greek, Spanish, Cherokee, you name it!) and even looked at cocktails (hint from Gimlet Media)...but nothing felt right...at the end we figured it needs to be something super simple but also tied into other aspects of what we're doing...

Since most of our users are traveling, we thought about things you see while traveling (animals, famous places, etc) as well as the actions you take (packing, moving, flying, etc)...in the end we loved the idea of "pack" -- it can be a noun, verb, whatever you want...but it was obviously taken across social media...

So we played around with Pak, Pakk, Pacq, Paqk, etc. We settled on Pak & Paq then ran it by some friends--good thing!!!--as apparently Pak is a racist slur for Pakistanis (never knew that)...so we went with Paq which fits into "have you Paq-ed for your trip?" "drop a Paq" and our mascot...Ally the Alpaqa!

Another tip is to think about what your core demographic is and play to those languages/strengths...While we loved "caja" (spanish for box) in Hebrew (we're based in Tel Aviv) it sounds like "cacha" which means "so-so"

Hope this helps!

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#16
post #15

Hey, first time commenting in HN...let's hope i don't break any rules :) We spent 5+ months thinking about different names & brainstormed literally for hours. You can find lots of good idea generators & checks for domains, social, etc here: http://startupstash.com/ We tried lots of languages (Greek, Spanish, Cherokee, you name it!) and even looked at cocktails (hint from Gimlet Media)...but nothing felt right...at th…

Thanks for the advice!

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#17

What is the concept of the app ? We can try if some hints are provided. Also, namestation does good job in helping to crowdsource the naming (domain names) problem. Found an article suggesting some ideas behind choosing a good name. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239556

It's a document editor (meant as a replacement for google docs, etc.).

The main advantages of the app over what already exists are:

- Minimalist design - Faster - Simpler - New features - Works on mobile devices

That article is useful, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#18

What is the concept of the app ? We can try if some hints are provided. Also, namestation does good job in helping to crowdsource the naming (domain names) problem. Found an article suggesting some ideas behind choosing a good name. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239556

It's a document editor (meant as a replacement for google docs, etc.). The main advantages of the app over what already exists are: - Minimalist design - Faster - Simpler - New features - Works on mobile devices That article is useful, thanks!

allwrite.io is available.

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#19
post #15

Hey, first time commenting in HN...let's hope i don't break any rules :) We spent 5+ months thinking about different names & brainstormed literally for hours. You can find lots of good idea generators & checks for domains, social, etc here: http://startupstash.com/ We tried lots of languages (Greek, Spanish, Cherokee, you name it!) and even looked at cocktails (hint from Gimlet Media)...but nothing felt right...at th…

This is how I go about naming things - by thinking of an associated concept or word or image. Recently, my workplace was looking to name their new BI tool. I thought about what BI gives you, thought about images it invokes, etc. Ultimately, I thought 'Echo' was a good name since you can think of business data being the echo of business and it's not the usual 'intelligence', 'insight', etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do I name my web app?

#20

What is the concept of the app ? We can try if some hints are provided. Also, namestation does good job in helping to crowdsource the naming (domain names) problem. Found an article suggesting some ideas behind choosing a good name. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239556

It's a document editor (meant as a replacement for google docs, etc.). The main advantages of the app over what already exists are: - Minimalist design - Faster - Simpler - New features - Works on mobile devices That article is useful, thanks!

SimpleDoc.com is available. Domain is no-doubt good, but will it sound good for your product ?
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