Ask HN: How to brainstorm a product name in 2 days? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to brainstorm a product name in 2 days?

7 pointscellover7 comments

We are launching a new SaaS platform in January. We realized yesterday that there is a risk of confusion with a well established brand here in France.

We need to change our brand name as quickly as possible.

Our app will help french private practicioners in their daily tasks (appointments, consultations, invoices etc.).

Any advice on how to brainstorm for a product name would be really helpful right now...

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I usually suggest to use domainr.com to find some possibilities. From that, I'll try to find synonyms for my product / service and combine them in a two-word way (Face-Book, You-Tube, Linked-In, Hacker-News, Duo-Lingo, Snap-Chat, Drop-Box, ...). If nothing comes to my mind after a lot of tries, I stick with a "meaningless" name, or simply something that is not directly correlated with the product itself (Uber, Waze, Dell, F5, Amazon, Apple).

You can also try with word alterations such as Lift > Lyft, Scribble > Skribbl, Domainer > Domainr, Engine X > nginx.

Best of luck!

> or simply something that is not directly correlated with the product itself (Uber...)

Uber was initially named Ubercab. They changed it when regulators began to treat them like a cab company.

> You can also try with word alterations such as Lift > Lyft, Scribble > Skribbl, Domainer > Domainr, Engine X > nginx.

This creates the inconvenience of always having to specify the spelling when you tell someone about it for the first time. It's similar to having a number in your domain name, you always need to specify if it's spelled out or it's the digits.

Naming is difficult.

Thanks for pointing out the thing about Uber, I honestly didn't know that!

For the spelling problem, I guess that in the end it's a non-problem, but for sure at the beginning it may be painful to keep repeating to you future customers how to spell it. If you have a good logo and a good brand, I think that the spelling problem is solved automatically as soon as your brand gets more awareness (:

Something we have experimented with is explaining the new thing (app, feature, product, whatever) to potential users and ask them what they would call it. You can also do a classic brainstorm with keywords and synonyms, get a list (of course check for competitor's names and other brand names) and test those out as well, by asking people what do they think app X is. I also like to go into the competition and see what they call similar products, it helps knowing what not to use and also gets some creative juices flowing. I hope this helps!

I would suggest the opposite as well — give them a name, and ask what they expect the company/product would be from that and also what emotions it evokes.

Create a mind map - it's a good tool for brainstoming. You can create one by yourself or collaboratively with others.

Here is a short, random YouTube video of someone creating a mind map:

How to Generate Ideas with Mind Mapping [2:39]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgwcqjdYSrg

Can you center it around things happening at the right time? Pile-poil, à pic, au bon moment. Get domain names in .fr and .com for these, some are not taken.

Your appointments, consultations, and invoices take place in a timely manner.

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