How to Creatively Name Your Startup (a Product, a Project, or a Baby)
X Æ A-12. It’s not a part number, not a celestial body, not an encrypted message, nor is it a name of an alien ambassador to Earth. Its a baby’s name. For those unfamiliar, it is explained here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/08/musk-grimes-baby-name/
I have no intel on how long Elon Musk was looking for the right name for his newborn, but there is one thing I do know: finding a good name for a new startup, a product, or a project is just plain hard. If you are entrepreneurial by nature, then you know what I am talking about. Unless, of course, you are used to naming your creations using your own name, or your street address, or by spelling out letters from a foreign alphabet. If you are satisfied with names like Joe’s Technologies, 147 Main Street Software, or Project Gamma, then read no further. Otherwise, I might be able to help.
Throughout my professional career, I was never good at picking names. God knows I tried hard. I called my first company Manumatix. Not a single person on Earth could spell or pronounce it correctly. Well, that’s excluding automotive enthusiasts who were familiar with manumatic transmissions in cars — which had nothing to do with my company.
Then Stage14 came around. The name was carefully selected by a marketing guru, and it failed as miserably. It was meant to refer to the actual filming stage #14 at 20th Century Fox in Hollywood, which gave birth to many famous movies, such as Minority Report, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Speed, Broken Arrow, and Die Hard 2. But it turned out that the only association people had with Stage14, and the word “stage” in particular, was “cancer”. Then came the realization that digits in a company’s name are not a substantial differentiator between the names, at least for the purpose of registering a business in California. In other words, if someone already registered Stage7, then you can’t register Stage14, forcing you to attach meaningless words to it for the sake of uniqueness, like “Stage14 Systems” or “Stage14 Technologies”. Ouch!
Then I turned to all sorts of name generators. No luck there either. If you never tried using a name generator, then play with a few of those on the web just for fun. If you get anything useful out of it, please post your findings. In my case, I had no luck with any of those algorithms, free or paid.
Any startup needs a web site. For that, you want a domain name that people can spell easily, after hearing the company’s name only once. Ideally, the domain name should be up to 5 or 6 characters long, and it is best to have a .com suffix for it (because that’s what people assume when they hear the company’s name). Well, good luck — all the proper English words of that length are already registered. That includes all recognizable species of animals, fishes, and birds (in case you draw your inspiration from O’Reilly book covers).
So what do we do? After the elimination of all the terrible options mentioned above, we don’t have that many choices left. Out of desperation, I decided to look for well-sounding names, even if they were totally meaningless. Since I had no method for creating those, I turned to friends for help. That’s how Eneum came about — which was a much better name than anything I could devise logically, although the simplicity of spelling was still arguable. Regardless, Eneum was a quantum leap forward, and it set me off on a quest to find a reliable method to create well-sounding names.
Sounds in our minds are associated with other modalities. When we hear a sound, it creates an auditory representation in our brain. It also triggers an automatic retrieval of visual, kinesthetic, olfactory, and even gustatory associations. Those associations come from memorized experiences, some positive, some negative. Respectively, the sound may create a positive or negative impression, based on the experiences accumulated over a lifetime. The trick to creating a well-sounding name is finding a sound with a high statistical probability of being associated with a positive experience in the minds of your customers. I am sure you can think of a few right away. All you need to do is to come up with a few options, spell them out, and pick the one with the most obvious spelling.
But then, why stop at just generally “well-sounding” names? Why not take it to the next level, and create a name which by itself invokes an avalanche of associations in a customer’s mind? Long story short, I found the way.
Run a simple experiment. You will need a large cooking pot with thin walls, ideally, the one made of copper. Put it upside down on your desk. Hit it lightly on a side with a wooden spoon, or any other piece of wood. Listen to the sound, and try to sense the reaction it evokes in your body. You should be able to feel vibrations of different kinds, warmth or coldness, a taste, or even a smell. You might be able to discern which part of your body is responding to the vibrations or where you feel the warmth, and how you feel overall towards the sound (positive or negative, and how strongly). Then experiment with other cooking pots, saucepans, and other household items capable of resonating sound. Replace the wooden spoon by metal, and try other objects (soft or hard, you may be surprised at how a plastic vitamin bottle or your iPhone may sound). Feel free to play with different ways of creating sound. I had great success hitting copper saucepans and aluminum basins against Venetian plaster walls and stucco.
Once you get a grip on it, gather at least five friends who roughly represent your target customers’ demographics, run them through your favorite sounds, and gather their comments into a spreadsheet. With this, you will see the big picture, and decide which of your favorite sounds lay the right foundation for the name you are creating. Then, spell out the name and check if the respective domain is available. Here are a few names that came out of my early experiments; they are still available at the time of this writing (feel free to grab them, if not too late):
- booum.com
- rooung.com
- zoonng.com
- bomm.com
- doong.com
I could have given you a few much better names, but no, I am keeping them exclusively to myself. Take the time, go through the hoops, and get a name that literally resonates with you!
If you want to take this to the next level, get a handpan (have a look at the picture — it isn’t a fake UFO sighting; this is what a handpan looks like). Handpan can do wonders. Those unfamiliar — check out this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=747hJQNJpeg
For those who don’t mind the size and complexity, here is another video that may turn out inspirational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2r6E1E7sM
BTW, all the techniques mentioned above may come handy during the ongoing quarantine even if you are not looking to name the new company. They are proven to work well to maintain mental health and relieve stress. Consider this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmyQ3LPZFAU and take it into your own hands from there.
Stay safe!
