Over the years I have seen a lot of crazy startup names from Silicon Valley and I can’t help but wonder what the logic behind these names is. This is most common for tech startups. If your business targets the general public and not just a particular group of tech folks, please I suggest you use a name people can spell, for starters. I see this common issue with brands like dribbble, Digg and Fiverr.
People generally have the habit of registering good names and not doing anything with it, and when someone with the right idea comes up, the right domain name will not be available. Also, startups try as much as possible not use common words, so they come up with an alternative spelling of common words. Alternative spellings come with pros and cons — in as much as they are short, they can be hard to pronounce and remember by your users.
Using alternative spellings can help startups secure a .com domain name easily and also add an extra character that can help your products and services stand out. Just know that it will take a lot of trial and error before your users get used to it.
I will go through all those funny naming trends and tell you what I think about each and my own personal suggestions. I’m not saying that any name is bad — if you have enough money to market the name and make it memorable go for it.
Adopting the Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD):
I see this trend often, Startups try to adopt a particular country code Top Level Domain just to look creative and trendy. Most ccTLD used are .ly, .ng .be, .us and the likes. Examples are enjazi.ly, Parse.ly, lingua.ly, admitted.ly, Visual.ly, Bit.ly, Reach.ly. I personally don’t know how this trend came about, but what I can tell you for sure that using this trend doesn’t necessarily make you creative. .ly is CCTLD of Libia and .ng is from Nigeria. Before you use this consider how difficult it might be to explain it to your user audibly.
Another trend closely related to Adopting the Country Code Top Level Domain is adding a “dot”.
This works in several ways, either to complete a word in a creative way, (for instance last.fm, about.me;) or you just want to specify a niche (For instance, startups with .io are mostly tech startups, examples are scotch.io, frontstack.io, startuptracker.io, vanila.io) Another reason to add “dot” is if you are using your Country Code Top Level Domain like (branded.ng, hotel.ng, mumpreneur.ng)
The Dropped Vowels (Who cares about an extra “e”?)
I first noticed this naming style with Flickr, then Tumblr. Personal I think the naming style is catchy and will sure make the .com available and it’s widely adopted. Below are few known examples
• Flickr
• Tumblr
• Grindr
• Scribd
• Kickstartr
• Twttr
Adding an extra letter
Just like dropping the vowel, startup founders can choose to add an extra letter in their name, good examples are Dribbble, Digg and Fiverr. I “honestlyy” don’t know the “Whyy” behind this but I made several mistakes before I got comfortable with those names.
Using Suffixes:
These are simply a morpheme added at the end of a word to form a derivative. I see this a lot in most Y-Combinators investments. Examples are Weebly, Startuply, Vidly, Answerly, Embedly, Fabricly, Optimizely, Feastly, contently, Spotify, Shopify, Flightcaster, Embedster, Crowdbooster.
Completely Misspell Words:
Some just chose to misspell the word completely you will see this among startups like Reddit, Disqus, Lyst, Netflix and Google
Blending words together:
Another popular trend I noticed major player use is the joining two words. Companies like Pinterest (pin + interest), Instagram (instant + telegram), Epicurious (epicurean + curious), Wikipedia (wiki + encyclopedia), Zillow (zillions + pillow), Hipmunk (hip + chipmunk). Startup with this naming style for some reasons are successful. Personal I think this naming trend is brilliant because of the level of creativity in describing what the product and the experience for the user.
Using two unrelated words together in a compound form:
This style of naming comes in compound form. I see this a lot with brands like Facebook, Youtube, Wordpress, Linkedin, Paypal, SnapChat, Dropbox, Opentable, Evernote, Flipboard, and Foursquare.
Finally, another weird one is the use of a word that sound like noise from a toddler,
a few examples is Skype, Etsy, Hulu, Kaggle, Zynga,
Wheew! These are the trends I have observed so far- please feel free to add yours if you feel I missed any.
Lastly, I’m not saying that any particular trend is right or wrong but before you use any, think about your audience — is your audience a tech one or not?
Also put your marketing budget into consideration. Whatever way you approach it, just know that your business success is not dependent on the domain name.
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