How do you come up with a good business name for your SaaS

Thank you all for these helpful tips. I will keep these in mind. I really appreciate all of you.

If you're having trouble coming up with your own ideas, you can go to Fiverr and for a few dollars pay someone else to come up with some. I've been part of naming several businesses and I always found that it was better to get someone who is outside the project help come up with names as they are not so involved in the details and can think about it in new and different ways. In the end you may come back to a name that the internal group proposed, but at least you'll have some totally different ideas to check it against. To check website and social media availability you can use a site like namecheck.com.

Naming is hard.

A good name doesn't matter too much, but a bad name will break your business.

Here are some heuristics to look out for when you're choosing a name:

1. The Bar Test. Make sure other people can understand your name and know how to spell it, even if you say it in a noisy, crowded bar. A name like "Lyft" is okay because you can just say "lift with a y".

2. Domain name. Make sure the name has a good domain name available. You can use prefixes or a custom TLD, but not both (e.g. getdropbox.com is fine, but getdropbox.co is not ideal).

3. Related to your business. This is not as important as the other two points, because you can build a great business even if you use a generic name, but it's a nice to have -- especially when you haven't build a good brand yet. People will automatically have a general idea of what you do just by hearing your name.

Those are some of the most important things that I personally look out for. Let me know if I've missed anything 😄

This is what we follow:

Naming your Brand

1. Brainstorm
   Take a sheet of paper and write down every association we need to have with the app. I mean every single one, no matter how ridiculous some of them may seem or sound to you. These associations can be tied to:

your app's main purpose.
its main feature(s).
its target audience.
what it will feel like to use your app.
how it can change its users' lives.

Once you have a huge list of potential app names, you can filter them and start toying with them by smashing two words together or modifying them in any other ways (refer to Section 2 below).

However, keep your mind brainstorming even after you're done writing associations down for at least a couple of days. You could hear or see an interesting combination or metaphor in your daily life that will sparkle up your search.

2. Modify the Words

Smash two words together (e.g. Pinterest = pin + interest, Instagram = instant + telegram).
Replace the 'y' or 'ey' at the end of the word with an 'i' (e.g. Bubbli).
Add a 'y' at the end (e.g. Tasky).
Omit vowels (e.g. Findr).
Double vowels (e.g. Maark).
Replace a letter with one that has a similar pronunciation (e.g. Lyft).

All the best

I used https://melbado.com/ because

• The .com domain was available
• Google returned no critical results
• I could mention the name to someone and he instantly knew how to spell it

Check if a .com domain is free , if not available , make sure it is not activly used by a large comp as their primary domain, as they will never sell and you might end up in trademark disputes

Here's the criteria we typically use, though it's less a science and more an art:

• 1.5-2 words
• 3 syllables or shorter
• Not too many vowels together
  • No accidental words or pronunciations
• No overly ambiguous spellings (homophones)
  • Should be easy to spell after hearing
• Domain available
• Social accounts available

Tools like Name Mesh and Lean Domain Search can be helpful, at least for generating inspiration.