Ask HN: Choosing a memorable and available domain name

Get on a linux command line, type in:

whois whatever.com

Brainstorm, repeat :)

Print lists of movie and book titles - they have to make a few words do a lot of work. I say lists, because you shouldn't be concerned with what they're about, but with which ones make you curious, and why. Good titles may evoke a strong association that you didn't know was there (horror movie? use a nursery rhyme fragment and you're half-way home), or provoke flights of imagination with juxtapositions you have never considered before. Make notes of which (unfamiliar) titles excite you most. This is why you should print them - so you can't immediately satisfy your curiosity about a provocative title with Amazon or Wikipedia. Do this over several days or with friends, it can be like a game where you compete to imagine what the movies or books are about. Then start making up stories about your domain. If it were a person, what sort of person owuld it be, what job would it do? Who would ube shown using it in a movie, and why? Play with it, have fun, write down anything that makes you smile or laugh. Don't be in a rush, a good name may need days or a week to pop up.

There is plenty of room for good two word domains, and will be for a long time to come. There's still a lot of one-word names available too; many of them sound stupid in isolation but it's the product which makes the name in the end. A good name should be easy to remember and repeat to another person, and you achieve that by stimulating an emotional response. If it's also functional/descriptive that is a bonus, but not necessary. You should also allocate some time for doing trademark searches etc. You must go through a lot of names and be patient.

I intensely dislike the current wave of domains like 'weeb.ly' 'grobble.com' 'nu-spella.com'. Most of them feel so forced and fake, like in bad science-fiction movies for kids. Unless kids are your target market, don't ask them for suggestions. You can use a completely made up name (such as anigbrowl) if it feels right, but some feel natural and some feel forced. This often seems to mirror the quality of the product, but maybe I'm just telling myself that.

There are many other techniques - dictionaries, letter shuffling, and so on. In fact there are specialist naming companies that will put together hundreds of names and spend hours discussing them, checking against trademark registries etc. Corporations use them all the time. One firm I know will charge a tiny startup $5,000 but they'll make a big corporate client sign up for $250,000. Of course that includes focus groups, international trademark clearances, checking a name doesn't mean something embarrassing in a foreign language etc.