You are a startup and you’re building a product. It all sounds exciting until you sit down to decide the product name. Coming up with a public name for your product is one of the early decisions you’ll need to make.
What criteria do you use for naming your product?
I’ve used the following:
1. AdWords: When people want to find something similar, what keywords are they searching for? I would use Google AdWords to find keywords/phrases that people are already searching for. Look for related searches.
2. Competitors: If there are similar products in the market, what have they named their product and what keywords are they focusing on?
3. Unique Name: Based on keywords from the first 2 steps and your own preference, pick a few unique name that communicates the outcome achieved by using your product.
For ex: if I was building a product which helps me search and find my files, I would call the product Found instead of File-Searcher or something else.
Sometimes, you might need to search for synonyms or replace certain characters in your name to make it distinctly unique.
Choose an appealing name. Something that appeals not only to you but also to your target audience. Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond on an emotional level. Usually long or confusing names are not favourable.
Also try to avoid names that are spelled differently than they sound.
4. Domain Name: Is a .com domain available for this name? Also what about other popolar TLDs? Personally I prefer getting a .com, unless your product naturally blends with some other TLD. Like talk.to You want to make sure your domain name is different enough from your competitors’ domain name.
People generally make mistakes while typing URLs, you need to make sure there are no stupid websites with small variations of you domain name.
5. Trademark: Might be worth checking if your product name is already a registered trademark owned by someone else in the same business domain. Esp. in the country where you plan to sell your product. In the US you can search trademarks on USPTO’s website.
6. Test your name: Its generally a good idea to present your shortlisted names to a few people and see their reaction.
7. App Stores: Even though all popular App Stores allow duplicate app names, it might be worth checking if other apps use the same name. .i.e. if you plan to build an app as part of your product.
Wikipedia has an excellent article on this topic called: Product Naming