How do you find a name for your projects?

Xavier Coiffard

1yr ago

31 replies

Naming is always a pain (even while coding). How do you proceed when you have a new product but can't find the right name? I've used Namelix but that doesn't really help… For my previous startup we spent literally several weeks on this. What're your tips to get a good name?

Replies

I'm CEO & Founder of Prönö.

My newest startup is named Prönö. It comes from the word "entrepreneur". Because we Finns find it very difficult to pronounce "antreprönöyr". So it became Prönö. www.prono.fi I had many alternative name ideas but after sparring with my friend a while she told me that all the names I had mentioned were booooring and didn't sound like me. Then she asked: "Don't you really have anything else?". I said that "I have had this Prönö name in my head for a while already, but wasn't sure about it". She told me that it is different, it looks like me and is perfect. So I took that name and haven't regretted it once. So my advice is this: talk with people. :)

Ziad B. Tannous

Start-Ups.net | Start-Ups Discovery Site

@helene_auramo love what you are trying to do. Definitely gonna sign up for the launch. Cheers

I'm CEO & Founder of Prönö.

@ziad_tannous Thank you <3

Founder: Market Research for Startups

I built surveysays.app for this very reason -- so you can answers these kinds of questions using feedback from real-world consumers. Actually just launched it on Product Hunt yesterday: SurveySays.

Alexandra Dolia

COO at Akurateco BV

We name our company and internal projects by its key value. For example, Akurateco is accuracy from Esperanto - a very precise name for Payments Management Software I think =)

Xavier Coiffard

Stop Building, Start Selling!

@alexandradolia I guess that's the only use of Esperanto !

Head of Content at Lemon.io

Figure our what's your most valuable advantage and promote it through the name. Or maybe NameSnack can help here - I haven't used it myself but it has tons of positive reviews.

Xavier Coiffard

Stop Building, Start Selling!

@yulia_mamonova I did not know NameSnack, I think I prefer namelix…

Vladimír Seman

I work at e-commerce

@yulia_mamonova @angezanetti i am solving the same thing now. i have tried namesnack, but it suggests only very long names... or is it just me not knowing how to use it?

Accelerating the time to scale of SaaS

I do a branding sprint of 3 hours. Once Ive the brand and vision clear I use namelix to inspire myself (inspire, that does not mean that I get the name from there). The criteria is brand fitting and a "purpose name", meaning that is a name linked to the purpose of the brand and product. Eg: Tesla is a purpose name.

Ziad B. Tannous

Start-Ups.net | Start-Ups Discovery Site

Mine didn't find hard time to name mine. It's a Start-Ups discovery platform and newsletter and I had this domain name registered since longer than I can remember hence Start-Ups.net (btw the original Start-Ups word is hyphenated)

Product | Design | Films

Make t-shirts with names and logos. Go in public. See how many people ask what it is.

Xavier Coiffard

Stop Building, Start Selling!

@vineet_sinha ahahah, that's the expensive way of doing it :)

Swift, Python, and web developer

When naming my games, I heavily focus on capturing the main themes from those games. In the case of Unscripted, I wanted to capture the fact that the experience of submitting a game to a prestigious arcade and hoping it will get accepted isn't really scriptable; personal experiences may vary. For The Costumemaster, I wanted to capture the main mechanic in the game: switching between costumes. You may want to first get a list of the main themes and points of your project, and then see where you can go that captures these ideas.

Founder of Wacht.tv

Not gonna lie it took me months to get a name, and it was a lot of bouncing it off people. My product end up being called Wachdit because it was available and related to core aspect of the product Television and Reddit.

Product Designer @ Sertifier INC.

For me, it ihas always been about a random inspiration :)

Xavier Coiffard

Stop Building, Start Selling!

I finally asked Twitter to name my next project → https://twitter.com/AngeZanetti/...

CEO @ Assemble - www.assemble.tv

Don't think about it too much. Deep down you already know what the name should be. It's probably been floating around in your mind for some time. Even if you don't immediately like the names in your mind, write them down for later. Brainstorm as many new names as possible using all the other strategies mentioned here. Once you've gone through that exercise, come back to those first names and see how they feel.

Imagination Technology™

Ah I love a good Brainstorm! To me it comes to slowing down and shifting from Thinking to Listening. In a metaphorical and energetic sense you tune into the “entity” of the product and on a higher level the pure Vision itself. There’s the whole world that expands of what influence/feelings the users will have. The experience. The vibe. The impact. From that visionary space of no limits (and no bad ideas) you flow what comes through. You get out of the way and listen to “it” versus trying to think, think, think. Then you’re finding the excitement and the best ideas flow through.

Software Craftman

My very first startup are Bool64. Which I got the name from a computing-world, a boolean data type and 64-bit architecture, before that, the idea of name was truebi (boolean + my last name (but also business intelligence) ), but someone already use that name (an the domain), so I just go with Bool64

@ByteDance/web3.0

I get the name from a movie I like.

Names are important, but not as important as we think they're. Naming a project is hard, because once you find the right name for it, then you have to find a domain name, social media user names and that's not easy task, it changes all you had been creating all these time

Currently building cow-pilot.io

Coming up with a good name is so hard ... I write down every potentially good name that ever makes its way into my mind and put it in a drawer. Be it in the shower, during a run, while I'm sleeping or during a coding session. I revisit it from time to time to check if the name I loved a week ago still hasn't lost its charm. That way, if I ever need a name for something, I can just open that drawer and pick one of the names and know I will be happy with it (if it's not taken yet ;) )

Vladimír Seman

I work at e-commerce

why not start with searching for available com domain? i try https://leandomainsearch.com/ for that, i would be glad if you can suggest more similar tools.

Xavier Coiffard

Stop Building, Start Selling!

@vladojsem Hey Vladimir, I use namemesh.com for that! It shows you the free domain names and make some suggestions based on your keywords. (For the social media accounts you can use namechk.com)

Vladimír Seman

I work at e-commerce

@angezanetti thank you for the suggestion

I've used namelix. It generates a lot of nonsense but also provides many ideas that I wouldn't think of on my own. https://namelix.com/

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