Why naming takes longer than building (and how I’m trying to fix it)
Hey everyone 👋
I’ve been working on a few small startup experiments recently, and something kept surprising me:
Naming the product often takes longer than building the MVP.
Not because we lack creativity.
But because naming isn’t just about words — it’s about constraints:
- the domain is taken
- the name sounds too generic
- there’s a similar startup
- someone already has the .com and wants $9,000
- the name works in one language but not another
- or it just doesn’t feel right
Meanwhile, you’re trying to keep momentum and move fast.
But naming becomes this weird bottleneck that slows everything down.
And I realized something:
A good name is not the one you love.
It’s the one that lets you keep building.
So I started researching naming frameworks:
- short & pronounceable
- easy to spell from hearing
- positive phonetic mouth-feel (yes, that’s a real term)
- meaning optional, feeling essential
And then the last step kills it:
You check the domain.
It’s taken.
Back to zero.
So I started building a small tool to help myself (and maybe others later):
CraftName.app
— generates short, brandable names
— checks domain availability instantly
— suggests usable alternatives instead of random nonsense
Not trying to automate creativity — just trying to remove the frustration loop.
If you're curious about the tool, here’s the concept:
https://craftname.app
But more than that — I’d love to hear how you deal with naming decisions.
I feel like every founder figures out their own weird method, and nobody talks about it.
Let's fix that. 🚀
Naming really is one of those surprisingly hard problems — it’s not just about picking a word, it’s about encoding the value, context, and emotion of what you’re building into something short and memorable. That’s why it often takes longer than surfacing a first prototype: you can build something real in days, but saying what it means in a way that resonates can take weeks.
One pattern that’s helped teams I’ve seen is to separate naming into targets, e.g., descriptive clarity (what problem it solves), audience resonance (words your users actually use), and domain availability (URL/handle). Treating those as distinct filters, rather than trying to solve them all at once, can speed things up without sacrificing meaning.
Curious — for founders who’ve struggled with naming, which part took the longest: finding something that explained the value, something that users liked, or something that was actually available across domains and social handles? That often tells where the real friction lives.
That's a good idea for name generator. I used tools in the past but their tools didn't check the domain or social media handles, which is deal breaker for me.
Yeah naming a product is difficult. Sometimes I come up with a name when I'm closer to launching. What worked for me is making up a name, or using two words that may not be a really common combo for apps like when I created ShredSpots (shredding + skate spots). Other names are just a play on words like WhattaEat (What to Eat) which is a name my co-founder came up with for our social food discovery app.