Naming Your Website or Business

Thinking of a name for a website (specially a dot com) can make one temporarily insane. :D When I started out, I already thought of using the word orange. I like the color and most RSS logos uses the color orange so I thought that it would be great for a blog and I wanted something that wouldn't tie me up to a niche. The hardest part for me is thinking of the word that will go with orange. Everything I can think of was taken. I was thinking then that I didn't want to use orangeblog because it sounds lame and Orangenotes was taken by a music blog. So I started searching thesaurusdotcom for something. I tried to search write and writer then one of the results had the word ink in it. I tried orangeink and it was again taken by a a graphic site(or was it a tattoo site?). I just added an s and that's where it all began for my blog.

Ooo I like the tips! I always agonize over what to choose for new names. So far I've been following Google's and Yahoo's philosophy: two o's? It's a winner!

Some great ideas there for brainstorming up some names! I like all of them except for the "randomize" method, which I find just a little bit too random. :)

@Louie - I can totally relate to your story Louie and the agonising frustration that you must've gone through each time you find out the name has already been taken...doh!
Thanks for sharing your story...btw, i really like your name and your logo, it stands out (in a professional way) and really represents your site well :)

@Crystal - Thanks for telling me about the google and yahoo philosophy, that's great to know! btw, how did you come up with your site name "ubiquitous"...does this refer to human-computer interaction or existing or being everywhere? or something else? you seemed to have put a lot of thought on your site name too :)

@Search Engine Panel - good to hear that you found most of them helpful; drop by again if you come across some new methods, i'd be interested to hear about them too :)

Great tips! I have used a few of them in the past, but I like the idea of creating a word using random letters - that's interesting...

Wow, that is some great information. I've been using these techniques without really knowing what good it could actually be. Now... to go start something!

@Anna - Yeh, with the randomise method you can certainly come up with some funny, weird and at least unique words that's for sure!

@Bradley - It's amazing when you realize you're actually doing these things already; good luck with starting and finding some new names :)

@Michael - Great to see how combining the places you live in or know about can inspire you to come up with your business name, well done!

OK, so I gotta know...how is it possible that you were able to drop on my blog 7 times in a row? All in the same day?

Thanks!

Love your blog, btw...can't wait to really get deep into it. The coolest thing about entrecard is the ability to find blogs you'd never see otherwise.

Thanks!

@Matt - Hey Matt, entrecard is certainly a great tool to use to not only drive traffic to your site, but for certainly finding out undiscovered and new sites out there. We for one, have found many informative websites and have gotten to know some great people.
In terms of the multiple card drops you see of the same card in your inbox - it's a glitch with the entrecard system, they are working to fix it. It is only possible for one site to drop 1 card on your site and vice versa - you may see a maximum of 2 cards sometimes, as this all depends on the time when the drops are reset for the zone you live in. Keep an eye out on this and you will see what I mean.
Cheers,
Marie

This is SO true. I often find that my ideas come from nowhere and that once that name has stuck in my head it is very hard to shift. I guess you know when it's right.

Great post and some really helpful info here. Thanks

I often use psychicwhois.com to find these names, they search everything thats available (.com,net,org,etc) while giving you suggestions close to what you've entered. Really expands horizions searching for domain names.

@theaffiliatepost - It's so true, some ideas just come to you without you really thinking much about it, while other times you can agonize over the right name for hours and even days! Thanks for stopping by :)

@blargumentor - Thanks for sharing with us about the method you are using. Psychicwhois.com seems like a pretty cool tool to really get some of the names you have come up with validated or just find new names that have not been taken yet - it's fantastic!

Hey good advice i know what its like trying to pick names and so on you start to think that there is no names left lol

Good tips. I can empathize with the frustration of having all the names you like taken and feeling at a creativity loss.

@Andy & Erica - It can get a bit frustrating when you start to think all the great names have been taken! But I guess, when this happens it pushes people to get a bit more creative and an unusual name you can come up with, may become a real winner!

If its an international business or a website and a random word that sounds good is being chosen as the name, its important to ensure that it doesn't have a funny, weird or bad meaning in some language. I have seen many examples of how this can ruin a business in a particular country.

@Raj - If a company wants to go global, they certainly need to ensure the name they have selected is not one that is offensive or insensitive to a particular group or culture. But at the same time there have been companies that have misconstrued the english language and have come up with some successful and yet controversial company names, for example the clothing company fcuk.