How to pick a company name

The way we got our name was pretty silly, and it happened in under a minute, so I'll share the story. My co-founder and I build apps, so we decided we should include the word 'app' in our name. I also tend to love company names with animals in them, so I had the idea to append an animal on the end. My co-founder held up our pet rat, and now we are AppRats.<p>We were initially concerned that people would be turned off by the word 'rat', as they occasionally are when we mention what type of pet we have. But as it turns out, most people really love the name, and they definitely remember us. Furthermore, being 'rats' completely describes our nature, as we are scrappy, extremely resilient, and making the most of the few resources we have.<p>The lesson we think applies here is that if you build your brand to reflect yourself, do what you do best, and make your customers happy, things generally work out pretty well.

As someone who named my design/development company Beard, Beard &#38; Beard I find this encouraging that non-serious names can still be taken seriously. Although I'm doing fine so far I always wonder if the name is too silly and is turning off potential clients I never hear from. I was in a rush when I was coming up with names but I definitely chose not to go with anything like Something Something Designs or Something Something Design Studio and am happy with that part of it at least.

I'll quote Scott McNealy, at a recent conference (after he "left" Sun/Oracle). On the screen were the recent investments from the VC firm sponsoring the event. Unprompted, he pointed to the screen and said: "This investment portfolio teaches me one thing: all good names are taken! What happened to my old days. We had, Apple and Sun".

I actually think Smart Bear is a pretty good brand. Think about it for a second, how does your mind respond to the name?<p>Smart Bear Software implies a lot of things, almost all good. Perhaps a product that is intelligently designed, with a new or alternative approach to problems? Maybe it means you bring thought leadership from an unlikely source? Maybe a wise old bear lumbering down from his cave to solve your problems? Exactly what you do right?<p>The fact of the matter is that a lot of old guard companies have horrendous brands. SAS or HP mean nothing (by themselves) to the buyer.

<a href="http://breadpig.com/legend/" rel="nofollow">http://breadpig.com/legend/</a><p>Breadpig had just the right amount of professionalism for what we aimed to do. There are some truly awful names out there, but this lesson about a name's "seriousness" is a good one. I think a little humor/self-deprecation goes a long way, especially in an industry where your competition is taking itself too seriously.<p>Granted, if you're developing a business that relies on a certain degree of trust with a market that is very risk-adverse, some extra discretion would be worth it (e.g., BetterThanYourMattressRetirementBanking.com). But then again...

Reminds me of the story of that company that was called Bradford &#38; Reed, even though the founders had different names, just because it sounded serious and imposing.<p>Edit: ah, found it, it was Andrew Warner's story.

When talking about names, DuckDuckGo always comes to mind as an example. A good or a bad example? That I am not sure of.

Smart Bear makes me think of Yogi, so I approve.

If you have a good memory, think back to the thick and fast torrents of mockery and scorn dumped upon the names Vista, Wii, and iPad when they were first announced. Even "MacBook Pro", which now seems to be almost passé, got plenty of hate at the time - just one example: <a href="http://www.maclife.com/forums/topic/76264/1" rel="nofollow">http://www.maclife.com/forums/topic/76264/1</a><p>When it comes to names, fortune favors the bold unless it has negative connotations.

I think Pragmatic Software (one of their other departments, apparently) would have been much better, but that's just me. "Pragmatic" sounds good and has an appropriate meaning, plus the "Software" part means you actually know what they do--beats some "MonkeyCheeseSpoon"/"PirateNinjaRobots" company name.

Use a project I'm working on now:<p><a href="http://www.needanym.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.needanym.com</a> (crowdsourced company naming)

"It's what you do, not what you call it."

What do you think about "lignito"?<p>Yeah, lignito.com is mine. We are very "discrete", nobody knows we exists.

Perfect timing. I need to pick a name today. Getting tired of Newco.