Naming craft

How to name a startup, brand or project: generating candidates, testing them properly, checking trademarks, and knowing when to commit.

Start here How to name a startup: the complete guide A practical, step-by-step guide to naming a startup: brainstorming methods, availability checks, trademark basics, testing a shortlist, and choosing a TLD.

• Words you can't just use: bank, insurance, and verified TLDs

  Some words and extensions are closed to you no matter who's claimed them: how .bank verification, sensitive-word laws, and ccTLD eligibility rules work.

• Does your domain name matter for AI search?

  No engine has published how AI answers choose sources, and no study isolates the domain name. What's known, what isn't, and what to do in the meantime.

• Why ChatGPT keeps suggesting domains that are already taken

  Generating a name and checking a registry are different operations, and nothing forces the second one to happen. The real mechanism — and the fix.

• Name teardown: why 10 famous startup names actually work

  Adidas isn't an acronym and eBay wasn't about Pez. The verified origins of ten famous names — and the pattern that makes them all work.

• Check the @handle, not just the domain: a name-availability checklist across X, Instagram, TikTok, GitHub & YouTube

  A name isn't yours if the @handles are taken. How to check availability on X, Instagram, TikTok, GitHub, and YouTube before committing to a name.

• How much does naming a startup actually cost? Agency vs contest vs AI vs DIY

  Naming a startup runs from free (DIY) to six figures (agency). Honest cost bands for all four routes — plus the hidden costs every approach shares.

• How to build a portmanteau brand name (Pinterest, Instagram, Vercel)

  A portmanteau brand name fuses two words into one coined word. Here's how to splice, overlap, and clip your way to a name that's still available.

• Name the product or the company? A brand-architecture decision guide

  Name the company as the master brand and let products ride on it — usually. How brand architecture drives your domain strategy, and when to split.

• Can't choose between two names? A tie-breaker framework

  Torn between two final names? A weighted scorecard, head-to-head tests, and concrete tie-breakers to pick one and move on — without weeks of agonising.

• How to name an open-source project (npm, GitHub, and the trademark trap)

  Naming an open-source project means clearing npm, PyPI, GitHub and a CLI name before the domain — plus a trademark wrinkle most side projects ignore.

• Do keywords in your domain name still matter for SEO?

  Exact-match domains give no real Google ranking edge today. Why keyword-stuffed names lost their power, and why a brandable name wins where it counts.

• Does your domain name have to match your business name?

  No — your domain, company name, and trademark are separate systems. What each does, when matching helps, and which one can actually force a rename.

• Hyphens and numbers in domain names: when they're fine

  Can a domain name have a hyphen or a dash? Yes — but should it? When hyphens and numbers are genuinely fine, plus an EU wrinkle most advice misses.

• One-word vs two-word startup names: what the data says

  Single-word names dominate YC startups (76.8%), but two-word compounds are a huge legit pattern. What our data says about one word vs two.

• The domain you want is taken? Your options, in order

  The .com is gone — now what? A calm decision tree of your options, cheapest to costliest, with a link to the deep dive for each one.

• Brandable vs descriptive domain names: which wins?

  Descriptive domains buy instant clarity; brandable ones buy ownability and trademark strength. When each genuinely wins — with real examples.

• Fast workflows for checking domain availability in bulk

  The fastest ways to check hundreds of domains at once — registrar bulk tools, WHOIS/RDAP, generator workflows, and the pitfalls that waste time.

• Domain hacks explained: how to build a name across the dot

  A practical guide to inventing domain hacks: TLDs that finish words, a generation technique, when a hack helps or hurts, and how to check it's real.

• How to check an EU trademark before you name your startup

  Search EUIPO's eSearch plus and TMview before committing to a name — what became of OHIM and the Community trade mark, and why a domain isn't clearance.

• How to name a startup: the complete guide

  A practical, step-by-step guide to naming a startup: brainstorming methods, availability checks, trademark basics, testing a shortlist, and choosing a TLD.

• How to prompt AI for name ideas — and where it falls short

  Prompt patterns that get better name ideas out of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots — plus the availability gap they leave, and how to close it.

• How to test a name before you commit

  A practical checklist for testing a name — radio test, search test, typo test, domain and handle availability, and a quick trademark sanity check.

• Inventing names from Latin and Greek roots

  How to coin a brandable name from Latin and Greek roots: why classical roots work, a starter list of roots, blending techniques, and pitfalls.

• Naming for a multilingual EU market: the cross-language gotchas

  Verified cross-language naming disasters, the famous myths that are false, and a practical checklist for naming across the EU's 24 official languages.

• Trademark basics to check before you register a domain

  Why a registered domain isn't a trademark, how classes and "confusingly similar" work, and the searches to run before you commit to a name.

• What actually makes a name brandable

  Brandability is a name's quality on its own — short, spellable after one hearing, distinctive, with the right TLD. Here's how we score it.

• When and how to rename a project

  Rename early and it's cheap; rename late and it's surgery. The signs a name has to go, when to keep it, and how to switch with the least damage.