The biggest problems with business name generators

Naimeo
5 min readApr 30, 2019

There’s more in a name than you can imagine.

Business names capture the hearts and minds of your audience before they’ve ever seen your product or service. A meaningful moniker tugs at the heartstrings of your customers and opens the door to future relationships.

Unfortunately, finding the perfect #CompanyName is much harder than it seems. For every iconic title like Google and Kodak, there are countless ideas that fail to resonate.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that modern names crash and burn is that they’re not given enough time and attention. Or that they’re not imaginative, distinctive or creative enough. It’s easy to think that your product or logo is the most critical element of your organisation. But the right name is the cornerstone of your company’s foundation. Get one letter wrong, and your entire enterprise could crumble.

When so much rests on the ideal title, can you afford to rely on the abilities of a computer programme? Here’s what you need to know about business #NameGenerators, and why they may not be right for you.

Why do companies use name generators?

Launching a company is one of the most exciting things you’ll ever do. However, it’s also a process that’s packed with challenges.

Around 90% of start-ups fail according to certain studies. More often than not, the reason that these companies crash and burn is that they don’t resonate with their target audience. If your target customer isn’t attracted to your business name, then they’ll never have the chance to see what you can do.

Remember, 77% of customers make purchasing decisions based on a brand’s title. Despite this, countless companies treat the naming process as an afterthought. When you’re only a week away from a business launch, or you’re tired of spending hours on endless brainstorming sessions, it’s tempting to look for an easy way out.

Business name generators provide a quick and simple way to get dozens of ideas for your business name. Unfortunately, most of the time, these titles aren’t as inspiring, or compelling as something that a human being could create.

The problem with business name generation

The #NamingProcess is a complicated thing to handle alone.

When you’re busy preparing to launch your business, you don’t have time to wait for creativity to come knocking. Nor can you afford to spend hours searching the web for available domain names. A generator can give you a selection of ready-to-buy monikers to choose from. However, all you’re getting is a bunch of words and letters that have been mashed together by a computer algorithm.

Naming generators bypass the art and creativity that goes into choosing the right name. While this might not seem like a big deal at first, it can cause a number of problems. Here are some of the biggest issues you’ll face with a name generator.

1. Getting a train wreck title

Most of the time, the #ArtificialIntelligence algorithms that a business name generator uses are very basic. They can search for the .com availability of a name and make sure titles aren’t trademarked, but they can’t come up with concepts from scratch.

This means that you’ll usually get a combination of words that have been mashed together from keywords you’re asked to supply when you start looking for business names. For instance, if your keywords are “Painter” and “Decorator” you might get: “Paintorator.com” Rarely, this train-wreck approach to naming will deliver something good. However, most of the time, all you get is a messy, complicated title that’s going to confuse your audience.

2. Ending up with “trendy” names

Another way that your business name generator may attempt to come up with ideas for your moniker is by taking inspiration from current trends, or popular brands in your niche. While trendy terms that sound like the famous businesses you already know and love can seem like an excellent choice at first, they quickly lead to issues.

For instance, a competitor to Twitter with the name “Chitter” would struggle to get out from the shadow of the already established brand.

3. Purposefully misspelled names

In some cases, when your name generator can’t find any available domains by just linking words together, it will attempt to provide alternative options with misspelled words instead. After all, there are around 140 million .com domains registered online today. Miss-spelling a word can often seem like one of the easiest ways to find an available title.

However, while newly invented words are great as business names, purposefully misspelled monikers rarely look or sound good. Using “Elekktroniqz.com” instead of Electronics won’t make you look modern or edgy. Your audience just won’t know how to spell your URL when they try to find you online.

Real creativity can’t be generated

At first glance, a business name generator seems like a great way to simplify the search for a new business name. Unfortunately, while technology has come a long way in recent years, it’s still not capable of anything. You might be able to use tech to search for products online or automate your emails, but bots still can’t create unique concepts from scratch.

The truth is that finding perfect #BusinessNames isn’t a process that can be distilled into a step-by-step algorithm. Naming a brand requires heart, experience, innovation, and creativity. It’s more than just science and data. Names need to be able to create connections between you and your target audience. To build those essential relationships, you need more than just two keywords that have been melded together.

To find out more about the issues with name generators, click through to our brilliant guide here. On the other hand, if you’re ready to discover why your naming strategy needs a human touch, visit naimeo.com today.

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Naimeo

Sometimes tomorrow isn’t soon enough. You need a brilliant company name, with an available .com, and you need it today. That’s why we created Naimeo.