Ask HN: How do you come up with a Brand or Project Name?

12 点作者 dvcoolster超过 8 年前

I believe large number of domains are taken, so even if you think of a creative name like 'shgdf.com' I randomly typed it, but even that's unavailable. My point is, in today's time thinking of a brand name, comes along with the task of finding available domain. So, inevitably I end up at instandomainsearch.com playing around with different combinations.Is there a better place where we can buy domains easily for $200 odd bucks if someone's been holding good brandable domain names. Brandbucket etc. seem too pricy and are good for maybe companies, but let's say for my small project, web game, or a blog, what's the ideal place? Aren't a lot of good use case domains just parked with bullshit ads? Is this even a problem, has anyone else struggled with this ever?Thank you

11 条评论

panorama超过 8 年前

I have the same wish: A service that provides a large list of available, short, human-esque .com domain names. I wouldn't mind paying and spending hours combing over it to find ones I liked. Someone did this a few years ago and I snagged a couple neat ones including a 5 letter .com.Anyway as for actual advice, I've built more than a handful of projects and startups at this point. The recurring theme in every project was that I'd start with something completely nonsensical to use as the name. If your cofounder likes grilled cheese sandwiches, call your project GCS or grilled cheese or whatever, including your github repo. Getting the domain has never been step 1 in anything I've ever built including my current business.There's weeks worth of work to do before the .com is needed. In the meantime what I do is keep an Evernote of words and phrases that pertain to the industry or what my service will likely do. While we had several product hypotheses, our business model was 95% likely to end up doing some form of data sifting on behalf of customers. So I would think about words that have to do with searching or finding things and kept a log of them:- Hound (as in the dog)- Seek/Seeker- Scout- Scope- VisionAlong with general words I liked from a linguistic standpoint: "Labs", "IQ", "Mighty", etc.When I looked for an available .com, I mixed combinations in my word list: "ScoutIQ", "MightyScope", "HoundLabs", etc. until I found one that I liked and was available: MightyScout - and I reserved it immediately.But to this day our Slack channel, Github repo, etc. still use the original, nonsense name :)

jjoe超过 8 年前

Here's how I came up with mine. I was building a Varnish-as-a-Service platform then. But I didn't want to use the word Varnish in my fqdn because it's a trademark. But also because the sum of its parts is more than Varnish (you've got scaling, security, etc).So I focused on the essence of the thing I was building, which is caching. I couldn't find any concise domain with the word "caching" in it. So I played around with syllables and settled on Cachoid.com. I'm happy with the outcome so far <a href="https://www.cachoid.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cachoid.com/</a>

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telebone_man超过 8 年前

FWIW, you can take parties to a sort of court (I use that word lightly) that can assist you in obtaining a domain taken by a squatter.It's been a few years, but google ICANN and I'm sure you'll find something.If I remember correctly, you submit a petition suggesting things like.. you either have a trademark or that you're a recognised business and then a committee make a decision based on that.

shaftway超过 8 年前

I use acronyms, portmanteaus, and other plays on words to name things. Sometimes backronyms. I can't point to some of my recent ones, as they're still in progress.While I was at NYMEX I built a system called NEON (Nymex Electronic Order Network). Followup projects followed the noble elements theme, sometimes with a forced backronym.One project involved multi-lingual communication, so I tooke "chat", which is "cat" in french, then translated that to Japanese (Neko).Basically just have fun with it, and don't stress.

chaz超过 8 年前

I found a good name for <$200 on Namejet. Also check out Flippa.com for good names from people willing to sell.A piece of advice that worked for me: don't get stuck on the name. It's hard and it takes time (and sometimes money). Pick any temporary name for $10 and keep building instead. You can always change it later. Many companies and projects have changed their name as they became successful. It feels like it's important in the beginning but it usually isn't.

jcahill84超过 8 年前

My first stop is almost always the thesaurus, from there I usually move on to combinations of two words or two synonyms of what I'm trying to build. My current project is a scheduled API monitoring tool, and I came up with the word "Schezzle" to represent what it is. A 90s rap influenced spin on the word "schedule." I think the trick is to find something that's easy to say and that can be communicated to other by word-of-mouth without having to spell it.

ThomPete超过 8 年前

Great names are built not found. Don't worry too much about getting the right name.Don't be afraid to call your company one thing but have a slightly different URL.A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that domain names needs to be easy to type but the reality is that most of us click on links to get to a company url we don't actually type it in (and even if you do Google is perfectly fine helping you find the right url)

codegeek超过 8 年前

Don't sweat it. Domain squatting is a business and a big one. There are plenty of people who are squatting on domains thinking it will make them a millionaire. They won't budge for"cheap" $200.However, if you find a domain you like, it doesn't hurt to try and ask the owner. But don't hold your breath.

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bsvalley超过 8 年前

If I build hand made products from my garage and sell them online for example:1- make up a new word based on a word that best describes your business (e.g. Maker = makr)2- if taken, look for synonyms of that word and repeat step one (e.g. Craftsman = krafsman)3- if taken, repeat 1 and 2 with a combination of 2 words (e.g. HomeMade = Homade, etc.)

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meagher超过 8 年前

Adding words before/after your ideal domain tends to work: gotinder.com, hioscar.com, invisionapp.com, etc.For domain name example.com: tryexample.com, getexample.com, goexample.com, hiexample.com, exampleapp.com

SBCRec超过 8 年前

I name my side projects internally after famous battles the ancient romans were involved in.