How makers stay productive

Adam Wathan (creator of TailwindCSS) mentioned this site: https://onelook.com, a dictionary look up to get ideas.

I've also tried

• http://www.bustaname.com
• https://www.shopify.ca/tools/business-name-generator

I love this question, I think naming is important and conveys a lot of trust and credibility. I usually dwell on the name too much though and consider changing it even after I secure the perfect domain.

My process usually involves:

• writing out lists of words that relate to the product
• plugging those into a name and domain generator like dotomator.com
• take my favorites and think on it for a few days before hastily buying another domain

I'm happy with what I came up with: UserSurge, DownPing, TestSuite, Push School, etc.

Namelix.com is a good resource to came up with ideas. I like it allows to search for names where the .com is not registered.

After releasing a product with a trainwreck of a name because I was too tired before the release, I pay a lot of attention to naming everything well in advance.

My current rules are:

1. Spelling should be as simple as possible, imagine advertising it on a podcast. No intentional misspellings with an available .com, no foreign words, no ambiguities (that are too common in English 😣).

2. Something tangible is better than abstract concepts, so customers can store the brand as an image in their memory (also this leads to better non-abstract logos).

3. Two simple common words with an available .com or .app are better than some obscure term from Thesaurus. There are still tons of options for the adjective+noun combos, especially if you go for .app ("Lucidchart" came to mind when I was writing it).

4. Typing the name in quotes into Google should give less than 100,000 results, ideally less than 10,000.

For me, naming is the most fun of a project! But where to start? I am not a fan of combining words to create a name. That usually leads to boring names that make it hard to pivot later on when needed.

Before I start the real naming brainstorm I create some rules and boundaries that I want to follow. This limit the playing field of possibilities a lot and makes it easier.

So for example:

• what languages should the name be pronounceable in?
• what is the look and feel the name should have? (this ties in with the vision of your product and how people are going to use it)
• long name or short name?
• does it need to mean something or not?

Let me give you 3 different cases:

Otira

Otira is the HR Slack bot that I am building. Instead of just a tool, I wanted her to feel like a real entity. So she needed a proper name. So definitely not something like AwesomeHRbot. The name should also be short, as you want to @-reply her easily and per sci-fi convention: a lot of artificial entities are named with an acronym.

So I went to work by mind mapping all kinds of relevant words of what I wanted Otira to relate to. Then I started to puzzle and fit those words into a coherent word/name format. Eventually I ended up with Otira: Online Team Interaction & Reporting Assistant

Initially I was fine with a secundairy TLD but luckily I was able to scoop up otira.com for $500

Maro

Maro is the name of my oldest son. For his name, we wanted it to be as internationally pronounceable as possible (since my name is Dutch and pretty hard to pronounce for non-Dutchies). It should also start with M-A-R as that has been a family tradition for a couple of generations. But we found most names with M-A-R prettty dull and old-fashioned. Eventually I just started to play around with the letters and after much debate we settled on Maro.

Team Croco

Team Croco was previously named Testing Agency, a name my business parter came up with at the time. I always hated the name. Eventually I pivoted the business a bit and decided that a name change was due as well. Team Croco was chosen because: I wanted it to be cute and have a mascot that we could use for marketing. I also wanted to emphasise that we are a real team and not just an anonymous entity (we where fully remote before it was cool). So it had to be Team "Something Something" So I began brainstorming different animals and playing around with words. I ended up with Croco (as from crocodile) because it combined both CRO (we are a conversion rate optimisation agency) and COoperation (as we work together with our clients for the best results).

Hope this helps!

I like using also https://www.namemesh.com/ for combining words and free domain names.

Instead of coming up with a brand name, I chose a descriptive name that would allow the website to perform better at SEO. Got lucky with the domain too! (HostedMetrics.com)

A lot of the advice around brand is focused on long term and at-scale. Instead, I focused on the first step. Rebranding is an option down the road, and while painful, it's a problem I'd love to have!

I do some brainstorming but I don't waste a lot of time on this step, generally when I find a better name along the way I just register it and redirect the old one. Domains doesn't cost that much and with 301 redirections you don't hurt your SEO.

Good question @xavier

1. I'm usually start with brainstorming ideas and words that come in mind when I think about new product.

There are few formulas of brand name, I prefer to use combination of two words or two parts to create a new brand name. It funny and easy way to come up with something fresh without spending a lot of time on it.

My product names are:

• fonotion (for + notion) - blog and community about Notion app.
• landconvert (land + convert) - product about landing pages and conversion.
• zenpanda (zen + panda) - blog about productivity and work-life balance.
• dsgnbot (design + bot) - digital downloads for designers
• geticon (get + icon) - icons inspiration

It's probably not the smartest and original way to brand products, but it's really easy and fast to create a new name that way.

2. Next and actually parallel step is to check domain name. I'm usually check .com, .co, .io. If original domain is obligated, I look for some alternatives. For example original name designbot.com was not available, so I tried to drop off some letters and come up with dsgnbot.com

3. Another cool way to brand side projects is to use actual domain tld in your name. Some examples of my product name ideas:

• cursor.academy - design lessons.
• colors.menu - color palettes inspiration.
• makers.wiki - community crowdsources knowledge base for startups and makers.

2. One more hack is I usually ask my wife for feedback and name ideas. 😀

Naming is hard :(. I renamed my book Deployment from Scratch twice including domain name changes. Such a pain!

In general, avoid being similar to the competition. Try to stay short. Look for names with the available .com domain.