Good Names

This week, two friends told me they were struggling to come up with a name for their new company, so I wanted to share my notes.

I’ve worked in startups my entire career and grew up with a younger brother who had a speech disability, so I’ve always been a little obsessed with how people communicate new companies, products, and even people. My wife and I named our two babies after famous people and places tied to the values we wanted to instill, with matching first letters and 2-1-2 syllables for symmetry. A little obsessed might be an understatement.

Onto the notes...

Good names have the following attributes.

• Easy to say
• Easy to spell
• 1-3 syllables
• Searchable
• Attainable .com
• Map to a symbol

Good names usually fall into one of three buckets.

• What it is: The name is what the company or product does.
  • Air-BNB
  • You-Tube
  • Coin-base
  • Micro-soft
  • Face-book
  • Vitamin-water
• Feeling: The name is a feeling of what the company or product does.
  • Uber
  • Slack
  • Apple
  • Stripe
  • Notion
  • Whatnot
• Famous: The company or product is named after a famous person, place, or thing.
  • Nike
  • Tesla
  • Palantir
  • Amazon
  • Farcaster
  • Robinhood

There are of course exceptions to these rules.