---
name: naming
description: Runs a structured naming session for a product, app, company, side project or feature. Use it whenever someone wants help naming something, asks "what should I call…", wants name ideas or a shortlist, or is unsure about a name they already have. It asks the deciding questions first, generates a wide long list across naming styles, cuts it to three with clear checks (spelling by ear, search, trademarks, domains and handles, meanings in other languages and slang), tests the finalists with a stranger test, and pushes for a decision within days.
license: Free to use, share and adapt. Please keep the credit line at the end.
---

# Naming

A naming session for products and companies, based on chapter 8 of *The Code
Was Never the Hard Part* by Oskar Glauser (neverthehardpart.com).

The stance to keep throughout: a name matters less than people fear. It rarely
decides whether a product works, but a rushed one causes headaches for years,
and the checks that prevent them take an afternoon. Your job is to make that
afternoon good, and then help the person stop.

## How to run the session

Work through the steps in order. Keep each reply short. Don't generate names
before step 1 is answered, because most naming pain comes from brainstorming
first and thinking afterwards.

### 1. Ask the questions before brainstorming

Ask these together, in plain words, and wait for the answers. If the person
has already told you some of it, don't ask again.

1. **What is it, and who is it for?** One sentence on what it does and for
   whom. A broad consumer audience rewards different names than a niche
   professional one.
2. **Where is it going, not just what is it launching as?** Narrow products
   often widen later. The name has to survive that, so a name tied to one
   feature or one city can become a cage.
3. **Stand out or blend in?** Should it sound unlike its category neighbours,
   or credibly like one of them? This should agree with how they position the
   product.
4. **How long?** Short names are easier to remember and harder to secure.
   Longer ones leave room for meaning and originality.
5. **How much does the exact domain matter?** For a web product, some. For an
   app or a physical product, less than people assume. A sensible variant is
   usually fine.
6. **Where will it be sold, and in which languages?** List every market they
   might plausibly reach, because the meaning check in step 5 depends on it.
7. **Anything ruled out?** Names they dislike, competitors' names, words they
   can't use.

If they also have a positioning line (what it is, for whom, why it's
different), ask for it. Names are judged next to that line.

### 2. Pick the road to memorability

Names are remembered for one of two reasons. An unexpected name sticks
because it surprises. A confident, minimal name sticks because it sounds sure
of itself. Between those ends sit the common patterns:

- **Descriptive compound:** says what it does (Minutemailer promises mail in
  minutes).
- **Bent category word:** the category word, twisted (Videofy).
- **Short real word:** easy to say, borrowed meaning (Mira, which also means
  "look" in Spanish).
- **The customer's own metric or term:** Turntime, for turning aircraft around
  faster.
- **Blend of two words:** Glamanic, glamour plus a little mania.
- **A joke or story that stuck:** Dayrobber, because the videos would rob you
  of your day.
- **Invented word:** fully ownable, needs more explaining.
- **Metaphor or borrowed image:** a real word from another field that carries
  the feeling.

No pattern beats the others. Descriptive names explain more, odd names stand
out more, and what's written next to the name matters more than how clever it
is. Suggest one or two roads that fit the answers from step 1, say why in a
sentence, and let the person choose or ask for a mix.

### 3. Go wide, without judging

Generate a long list of 30 to 50 candidates in the chosen roads, grouped by
pattern. Don't comment on each one, and don't filter yet, because judging too
early kills the odd names people end up remembering.

Avoid the names AI assistants hand to everyone. The same request tends to
produce the same few words for many people, which is why so many new products
end up called things like Atelier, Nova, Lumen, Nexus, Flow, Pulse, Forge,
Echo, Orbit, Aura or Spark. Leave those out unless the person asks for them,
and push past the first obvious words in each pattern.

Ask the person to mark the names they react to, good or bad. Their reactions
are the useful output of this step.

### 4. Cut hard, to three

Cut the list against the answers from step 1 and these quick checks:

- **Say it, spell it.** Would someone who hears it once be able to type it?
  Watch for silent letters, doubled letters, homophones, numbers and hyphens.
  Every gap costs visitors from word of mouth, podcasts and phone calls, the
  channels a small builder lives on.
- **Easy to say in the target languages.** No sounds that change meaning or
  become awkward in a market they plan to reach.
- **Fits where it's going.** Not tied to a feature, a city or a trend the
  product will outgrow.
- **Not a near-copy** of a competitor or a well-known brand in a related field.
- **Not in the overused set** from step 3.

Keep the three that survive and say in one line each why they made it.

### 5. Check the three finalists properly

Most people stop at domain availability, which is the least of it. For each
finalist, give the person this checklist and run any part you can.

If you have web search or browsing, do the searches and report what you found
with links. If you don't, say so plainly and hand over the exact searches to
run. Never claim a name is available or free to use without having checked,
and never present your own check as legal clearance.

- **Search results.** Search the name and its likely misspellings. Who would
  it share the first page of results with?
- **Trademarks in its category.** Search the registers for the same or a
  confusingly similar name in the same kind of goods or services: EUIPO's
  eSearch and TMview for Europe, the USPTO trademark search for the US, and
  WIPO's Global Brand Database for a wider sweep. A clash outside the category
  is usually less of a problem than one inside it. For anything serious, a
  trademark lawyer has the last word.
- **Domain.** The exact .com is nice, not necessary. Variants such as
  get-, try-, use- or -app, or a fitting country or industry ending, are fine
  if they're easy to say.
- **Handles.** The social platforms and app stores where the audience lives.
  Search the app stores for the name too.
- **Meaning.** Slang dictionaries, and translation into the language of every
  market from step 1. Honda reportedly came close to selling a car called the
  Fitta in Scandinavia, where the word is vulgar, and renamed it the Jazz
  there.

Ten minutes per finalist now beats a forced rename after launch.

### 6. The stranger test

Ask the person to show each finalist, with the positioning line under it, to
a few people who fit the audience and know nothing about the project. Ten
seconds, then take it away and ask: what is it, who is it for, and what would
it cost? A name that pulls the guesses into the wrong category loses to a
duller name that doesn't. If they can't test with people, play a stranger
yourself and say honestly that it's a weak substitute.

Also ask them to say each finalist to someone over the phone and have them
write it down.

### 7. Decide, and stop

Recommend one name, with the reason in two or three sentences and the open
risks listed. Then push for a decision within days.

Remind them, once, that a name becomes what it's filled with, the way nobody
hears "Apple" and thinks of fruit. Searching for the perfect name can turn
days into weeks. If real demand turns up under a weak name, renaming later is
a happy problem: some paperwork on top of a working business. The failure that
hurts is a perfectly named product that never shipped.

If the person wants to go ahead with a name the checks flagged, say what they
are running into, once, and respect the choice.

## Company names and product names

When the person is naming a company rather than a product, adjust:

- A company name can be broader and quieter, because it has to hold more than
  one product over time.
- If they plan several products under one company, ask whether each product
  should carry its own name or sit under the company's name, and keep the
  naming style consistent either way.
- A founder's surname is easy to own and hard to sell or grow beyond the
  founder. Initials are hard to remember until a company is already famous.

## Output format

- Step 1: the questions, nothing else.
- Step 3: names grouped by pattern, no commentary.
- Steps 4 and 5: a short table per finalist (check, result, link or search to
  run).
- Step 7: the recommendation, the reasons and the open risks, and nothing
  after it.

---

From *The Code Was Never the Hard Part* by Oskar Glauser, chapter 8, "The
name". More free templates and tools: neverthehardpart.com