Ask HN: How did you come up with your startup name?

16 points by sujayk_33 6 days ago

Hey guys, quick question

Everytime you build something, you name it and we probably stress out while finding a good, suitable name, a name that would reflect our product.

How did you come up with the name for whatever you've build, is there a story behind it and then you were like this is it ..

Let's go...

kentich 6 days ago

I had a tagline for my app "Video Meetings Through Virtual Frosted Glass", and I asked AI (namelix.com) to suggest names for it. One of the names was MeetingGlass. I liked it, .com domain was available for it, so I took it. :-)

  • slater 6 days ago

    FYI loading your site gives me 32 JS errors (Firefox), mainly from trying to load external fonts via HTTP while your site is served from HTTPS.

    • kentich 5 days ago

      Thanks for telling me about that!

  • sujayk_33 6 days ago

    namelix is nice, thanks :D

breck 6 days ago

Name early; rename often.

I try to get my names to be common words that are as close to what I am trying to do as possible.

It takes me years, sometimes 10+, to get the right name.

If I feel that a name is far from the final name, I will make sure that it is a unique name like "PinkMugz", so that it is an easy find/replace when I finally discover a good name.

  • sujayk_33 5 days ago

    Great advice, recently read "Build first, iterate later" from Zero to One by Peter Thiel.

codingdave 5 days ago

I just name things for what they do, and don't worry about branding. Branding matters once you have a product people want to use... so get there first, and then brainstorm names with both your team and early users.

  • yen223 5 days ago

    I keep thinking about how ChatGPT was a name that clearly wasn't given much thought, but it's one of the most popular brands in recent history.

cloudking 6 days ago

Something short and easy for people to remember and tell each other, think about all that free word of mouth marketing you can get because people love your product and want to share it.

The worst names are the ones that you have to spell out, or have some weird character substitutions. It makes it hard to spread via word of mouth and find on search.

Bonus points if it's related directly to the product, but it can also be an abstract reference if that isn't possible.

Lastly, don't overthink or waste too much time on naming it. Spend time building a great product that solves a real problem and name it closer to launch if you're stuck.

johncreatescode 6 days ago

I've always been obsessed with psychology, even though I never had the chance to study it formally.

For my startup, which aims to act as the subconscious of your finances, I thought about the concept of the inner self, the reflective part of our minds.

And that's how the name InnerWallet was born.

cpersona 5 days ago

I had a question I needed to answer. The domain name is the question.

Turboblack 5 days ago

hamster - slang, Internet (in Ua). same as home page so thats why HamsterCMS ))))

rozenmd 5 days ago

I just wanted a tool that told me if my website was online, or not.

thala 5 days ago

Pick a word and drop the vowels

imvetri 5 days ago

Computer is cool school