Ask HN: Is there any science to naming products? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there any science to naming products?

5 pointssanty-gegen8 comments

I've been growing as a developer for the last couple months, using deliberate practice. Now, I'd like to release a mini product I've built for myself into the market, and am curious about what are the best practices (if any) for naming products.

I read the PG essay on changing your name: http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html and it seems I don't have the naming skills he talks about haha

Any advice would be super welcome :)

View on HN

Naming things is very hard. As hard as it is to make good names for functions, variables, etc., it's even harder for products.

There is a great deal of literature out there on product naming, but I think that it's all very squishy and it's easy to overthink the whole deal.

What I do with my products is to avoid getting too imaginative or fancy. I name my products in a straightforward way such that you know what the product fundamentally does by the name alone. For example, instead of naming a shopping list program "The Shopinator" or something, I'd be more likely to name it something like "<DBA> Shopping List Manager". Doing that also helps to keep you from accidentally stomping on someone's trademark.

It's worked well for me, but I have no idea if it would work well for anybody else.

Ok, I'll use the condition that the utility of the product has to be clear from the name alone. Sounds reasonable.

Another piece of advice: at least do a web search on any name you are considering[1]. In part to find out if someone else is using a name that's too similar, but also to find out if the name you're considering has some sort of adverse implication that you're unaware of.

[1] My business attorney insists on also doing a trademark search.

Can't believe this advice is free. Hacker news really is an amazing community. How do you actually do a trademark research?

Let your customers/target market give you the best name.

Peter Shallard "The Shrink for Entrepreneurs" didn't come up with that title. That's what his best clients were calling him.

I like this guide by Nick Kolenda : https://nickkolenda.com/guides/brand-names I love his other guides as well, by the way.

Just take what it does and add -er.

Tried it, incidentally. It was taken however (multiple times haha)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com