I enjoy the process very much. I’ve done it before. I’ve read a pretty good book (Wordcraft, by Alex Frankel); I’ve thought hard about them.

For tech companies, the big problem is, of course, URL availability and it is an extreme limiting factor to naming. The naturally limited inventory and the squatters forces unnatural names. (If you are lucky and the URL for your preferred name is not taken, then it is likely that the trademark is open as well, but you can do a quick check on that).  Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has a post about domain name extensions that is worth reading.  Since my blog is named Seedround, I will disagree with his statement that a name is worth $25,000.

So what is the creative process for finding a name? Don’t really have one, sorry. This is one of those “lightning can strike anywhere” projects.

Dan and I named Milktruck while he was keeping me company while I was waiting for a train. I forgot how we can up with Biz360 (but that was a codename that stuck; or more accurately, nothing better was ever suggested). Boxxet was thought of late one night (while I was alone) after weeks and weeks going through hundreds of names. I had to force myself to walk away from the project several times just to regain energy.

There’s no magic for me; lots of ideas (some awful, some great but unavailable, some good); lots of research; then a bit of testing with your inner circle (after all, why share bizarre names with too many people?).

• Can they say it?
• Can they spell it?
• Are they going to, more likely than not, remember it?

Yes to all? Wow! Two of three? Take it.

Does it pass the ridiculous test? Then go. Of course, you can also not pass the ridiculous test and still do very well (see Yahoo and Google).

There will be people who love/hate/like/dislike/don’t care about your name. You will not get agreement; you should not bother to get agreement.

I happen to like names that are descriptive or provoke the images I would like the company’s users/clients to see:

• Milktruck: This was a “push” Web application. So Milktruck automatically brought you fresh stuff every day!
• Biz360: This was an analytic application that analyzed all the news that happened around your company and industry everyday. Biz360 gave you a 360 degree view of your business.
• Boxxet: The image of the “best-of” is reflected in a “box set,” thus the name Boxxet. People who do not like the name right away will often come back and tell me that they later changed their mind.

We went through a LOT of names before we hit Boxxet. Many were awful. Here are some (no snickering, please): Onrego, civicjam, thelotofus, LoveOrHateIt, TheWordFor, REcolon, InRegardTo, ThisIsSwell, RiffWire. I’ll leave it to you to figure them out (at one point or another, they all had some meaning to me).

You may ask: why not go through a naming firm for such an important branding move?  To that, I point to this article that I first saw on Guy Kawasaki’s blog.