How do you come up with a name for your product?

The best advice I can think of is not to waste too much time on it. Here is a helpful article: http://nathanbarry.com/naming-your-product/

When it came to naming time, my cofounder and I drank a bunch of beer and thought of monosyllabic words in two categories. Something that relates to our business, and something cute. Hence LinkMink.com.

And when we finished the process, we felt like we had 10 names that were all fine but none that we knew were it. So we just went with one.

Other considerations:

• Easy to hear over the phone.

• An available domain

• No significant SEO around the term already

Hi Noah, I actually touched on this in a post I wrote yesterday for my company https://usehoneybe.com . Here's a piece of the post:

Does your company name really matter? Any over-thinker, traditional marketer, cautious and timid person would say, YES. I think it can be a pretty big waste of time.

But at the same time I wanted to choose something that was brand-able and made sense.

I honestly can’t remember all the other names that I was debating going with, but they were something like:

• DeclareX

• GoLeads

• LeadGO

• [insert other random name idea here]

A few days (waste of time?) of thinking led me to, Honeybee.

Honey bees collect pollen and nectar as food for the entire colony, and as they do, they pollinate plants. I saw the connection between honey bees and business development. BDRs/SDRs are responsible for prospecting. Their world revolves around lead generation (gathering/collecting pollen & nectar) and warming up leads (pollinating) for the sales rep.

For two word names, I use this:

https://codepen.io/anon/pen/jKjRrR

For one word names, I reference literature I've read in the past.

Hi Noah,

Maybe a shameless plug but that's exactly what our new side project does at https://astronamy.carrd.co. You'll see exactly what we think of soul less naming generators on the home page :) Be sure to check us out if you need any help.

1. Start here by punching in suggestions: https://www.oberlo.co.uk/tools/business-name-generator

2. ALWAYS check to see if anyone else has used it already: https://namechk.com

Done.

I recommend https://namelix.com if you're strapped for time.

I do brand development and helped a friend turn his non profit into a for profit, including discovering a new name. We spent weeks going through alot of white boards and finally his board of dir. chose a name that i got from a name generator 😑

One of my side projects is about business naming so I created a lightweight process for naming brands.

1. What kind of brand do I want? If the brand was a person, how would its personality be described in 3-5 words? Example: uncomplicated, fast, funny.

2. Brainstorm keywords that explain your brand, i.e. what it actually does, its industry, what it offers, etc. Research synonyms, rhyming words, related terms from unorthodox industries and research fields. Example: event, events, conference, conferences, trade shows, conf, rub shoulders, konferens (swedish)

3. Create name candidates based on the keywords you've created in step 1 and 2. Don't judge the names you create, just brainstorm and document them in a text file.

4. Evaluate each name candidate based on these factors:

   1. is the name easy to say and write?

   2. is the .com domain available? use hover.com

   3. does the name project the brand personality we want?

   4. how many search results does google return? The fewer the better. Also, googling will tell you if there might be any legal issues.

   5. are key user accounts (twitter, instagram, facebook) available?

assign a rating 1-5 for each name based on the evaluation above. 1 means a name is worthless and 5 means it’s a top final candidate.

I typically create dozens of name candidates for my projects and rarely does a name candidate get more than a 4. 1s and 2s are very common because you're going to generate lots of names and it's ok if some of them stink during brainstorming.

I always come back to https://www.dotomator.com/index.html for inspiration. You enter a keyword and select an ending category, and it generates interesting names.

A great way to come up with a product name is to use Lean Domain Search https://www.leandomainsearch.com/

Input a word there and it will give you a lot of ideas and also check if that domain is available.

A LOT of brainstorming. It has taken us significantly more time than it should to pick a name for each project. Whiteboards have helped us. We start with a group and a whiteboard, then move to Godaddy to ensure the domain is available.

It helps to do some basic research on a name before you commit. Last year we received a letter from a European company with the same name as one of our projects. It resulted in rebranding the entire project.

1. Write down the words that describe your product best (not sentences, loose words)

ie: a drum app would have: sticks, drums, sound, music, beat. Sticks could be a cool name

2. Try to cross match them and/or write words that sound the same (when pronounced) but are written different (

ie: Stix instead of Sticks

3. Try to find a couple of these similar sounding words or mashups. Go check out of the domain is there (see other people's comments for good tips on this)

4. Make your name rememberable or noticeable by finding a nice ringing name or something that indicates what the product is about

Rince and repeat.

Talk with friends, avoid the internet (stupid domain grabbers)

Unfortunately, I think today you need to first make sure the domain is available. When coming up with a name I start at Godaddy and start playing around.

There are also some other sites which will suggest names for you based on available domains.