Gabriel Harper's Blog

Anyone who has ever registered a domain, named a product or business, or otherwise had to come up with a suitable, catchy name for something, knows how hard it can be to find a unique and catchy name.

Some names have almost nothing to do with the actual product or service they represent, and are just catchy. That’s fine, but I’m focusing on developing a name that inspires a specific image in a potential customers mind.

Let’s use an example for the purposes of this article. Let’s assume we are starting a web hosting business. Our selling points are reliability, security, and support.

Before diving into the process, it’s important to understand what you’re selling. You need a clear vision of who you are, what you do, what you offer, etc. Keep in mind potential growth, and services or products you may add in the future. “Bob’s Web Design” might be perfect for you now, but what happens when you move into network security in two years?

On the flip side, don’t try to encompass every possibility in the world. A new name usually means a new business, and focusing on your core service or product is extremely important for a new establishment.

Start with a keyword list, and make it as long as possible. Focus on listing words that your name should convey. What do you want your name to tell people? What emotions and images do you want associated with your name? Use a dictionary and thesaurus to come up with even more words. Good word tools are very useful too. It’s easy to get sidetracked at this stage, but right now we aren’t worried about getting the perfect name, just a huge list!

Once you have a list that you feel contains all of the keywords you can possibly devise for your general image, start crossing them off. Narrow that list down to a generous handful of words that best describe your service/product. If you’re unsure about one, don’t cross it off.

Now you should have a pretty good list of words to work with. This is your word pool. Don’t be afraid to add to it, return to the first step, or remove more as you continue. The entire process is a brainstorming session, and these are just some basic guidelines.

For example, some of the words on our list may include:

• reliable
• hosting
• network
• secure
• trustworthy
• professional

As an exercise, try expanding the list above with popular synonyms/

If you are feeling particularly energetic, you can also try organizing your list in order of importance, with the most appealing and descriptive words at the top.

Now comes the fun part. It’s time to start a new list. Using our word pool, create a new list of potential names and try combining, expanding, shrinking, and getting creative with your words.

There are a lot of techniques for developing interesting names through combinations and deviations of your word pool. You can experiment with multiple words, combining words, extracting word parts and adding prefix and suffixes, and adding a descriptive element to the end of your names like “Web Hosting” (e.g. “Quatrimatrix Web Hosting”). Here are some examples of a few different types:

Word Sequences

• Reliable Focus
• Pro Web Hosting

Word Combinations

• ReliaHost
• HostSecure

Word Deviations

• Hosternix
• HyperHost

Word Deviations and Combinations

• eNetHost
• ProliaHost

You can see how one could get very creative with a long list!

Using common prefixes and suffixes attached to parts of your key words can be an effective way to obtain a short, memorable name that appeals to your target market and has a creative appeal.

It can be inspiring to look at some of the top names, and review other people’s creations. It’s also handy to have good list of word roots to help your creativity out.

Think about the images and emotions each of your names evokes. What will it invoke in your target audience? What sort of colors and sounds would you associate with it? Be absolutely creative and don’t worry if your list is too long.

Now comes the hardest part… choosing your name! Before we continue, I cannot stress this enough: don’t rush it. You will know when you have found the right one, but don’t make a choice until you are definitely happy with it.

At this point you should have a long list of potential names. It’s time to refine that list and make it as short as possible. First, evaluate the list and cross off anything that you don’t like. This is the simplest way to start minimizing your options. Also remove any names that are already taken by another company, for obvious reasons! Once you have a list of names that you are pretty happy with, it can be very useful to get feedback on your names. Keep your target market in mind, though. If you ask your 9 year old brother, he’s going to like different names than the 35 year old demographic your business might be targetting. Find individuals that fit your target market and ask them what their first impression of each name is.

Your list should be getting pretty short by now, and you should have a pretty good feel for which names are favorable. If not, step back and have another brainstorming session, and repeat the process. Once your list is shortened down to a handful of names, it’s time to take another swipe at some deviations of these names. Maybe “Quatrimatrix” should be “Quatramatrix” or “Quantimatrix”.

The final decision is ultimately up to you. I will repeat the process as many times as necessary to develop the right name. With your short list, start thinking about branding – such as the colors, images, logo, and motto you might associate with each name.

Naming a business is no small task. Corporations pay millions for the right name. But you can develop your own name by using the techniques described in this article, and like all great creations you will cherish it and have a personal connection with your name that nobody can replace.

Best of luck making that final decision, and I encourage you to ask any questions, share your methods, or comment on this article in our forums.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 7:43 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.