What’s in a Startup Baby Name?

On the trials and tribulations of naming your new kid

Over the past few months, Sarah and I have been trying to decide on a name for our new startup baby.

I refused to participate in the naming process until we found out a gender, but now we know we’re having a boy.

Upon finding out the gender, I grunted like a neanderthal and said to Sarah:

“You GOOD Wife. You give me SON. YES. GOOD WIFE.”

I’m not sure why I reacted that way, but it felt primal and completely natural.

After that, our immediate thoughts turned to naming the baby.

I’ve realized that naming a baby in 2014 is actually quite hard.

Fortunately, there’s an App for that.

But still, with 50,000+ names to choose from, it can be quite daunting.

They range a broad spectrum of categories:

There’s Ancient Names — like Adonis or Amadeus.

Or Animal Names — like Barrett or Conan.

Or Christmas Names — like Emmanuel or Christian.

Even City Names — like Austin, Charleston or Dallas.

Color Names — like Jet or Red.

Cowboy Names — like Duke or Cooper.

There’s always Fall Inspired Names — like Leaf or Hunter.

Don’t forget Flowers and Trees — like Oliver and Perry.

Or Gems and Jewels — Flint and Stone.

There are “Beautiful” Names — like Beau or Kevin.

Plus “Strong” Names — like Arnold or Bo.

Timeless Old Fashioned Names — like Alexander and Stanley.

Preppy Names — like Blake and Jennings.

My favorites — the Southern Names — Bubba and Roy.

Even “Super Hot Right Now” Trending Names — like Beckett and Hansel.

Or you can always nominate yourself for worst parent ever — and name your kid “Abcde” (pronounced abs-idee)

And there’s US President Names — like Jackson, Kennedy and Reagan.

I wanted to name the kid “Legolas Lorang” — but Sarah nixed that.

Brad Feld and his wife Amy suggested “Laser Lorang” — which I thought was pretty cool. Nobody on the playground would fuck with Laser.

David Cohen suggested “Quiche Lorang” — which had us laughing and in stitches.

Lots of choices. Very difficult to decide.

It’s not unlike naming a startup, really.

But in naming a startup, you can always change the name. We changed the name of FullContact four or five times before we found one we loved.

But human names typically last forever.

I have some very strong opinions about this, so it hasn’t been easy on Sarah.

When I was a kid, my Dad always told me that the two choices he gave my Mother were “Barnabus” or “Bartholomew.”

Either way, I was bound to be named after a character in The Simpsons.

My Mom chose Bart.

Naturally, I had two nicknames growing up:

Bart the Smart and Bart the Fart.

I’ll let you guess which one was used more frequently.

Ironically, it reminds me of this Simpsons Scene, which pretty much sums up my life before 15 years old:

(After Homer rejects other names for boys based on rhyming nicknames)
Marge: What about Bart?
Homer: Let’s see. Bart, dart, cart, e-art. Nope can’t see any problems with that.
(Missing fart due to only 4 fingers)

So early on, I was pretty bummed about my name.

But now, as an adult, I’ve come to appreciate my unique name.

In fact, my name is so unique, that I am 99.99999% positive that I am the only Bartholomew David Lorang on the planet.

In today’s day and age though, there are several things one has to do before making a final selection:

Check the Domain Name availability first.

Check the Twitter handle availability.

Check the Facebook username availability — or Instagram.

Do a Google Search.

Do a Trademark Search.

Think of different nicknames you’ll use. My friends in college always called me “B-Lo” or “The BLT”

It’s a time consuming, extraordinarily stressful process. And all the fathers I know tell me that THIS is the easiest part. Crap.

Anyways, we’re close to making a decision. But it hasn’t been easy.

I hope we get it right.

But if we don’t, there’s always something easy, like Qwerty.