Naming is the hardest easy thing

Naming looks easy from the outside. It’s a word. How hard can a word be? Then you actually try, and three hundred candidates later you’re staring at a spreadsheet where every good one is taken, every available one is ugly, and everyone in the room loves a different terrible option.

The trap is treating it as a hunt for the perfect name. There isn’t one. There are only names that are workable and names that aren’t, and a lot of taste in between.

Start with the job, not the words

Before we generate a single option we decide what the name has to do. Should it describe, or evoke? Does it need to work in other languages? Will it sit next to a descriptor, or carry the whole load alone? A name for a law firm and a name for a nightclub have different jobs, and the job narrows the field fast.

Then generate wide, judge narrow

We go broad on purpose — real words, invented ones, compounds, misspellings, metaphors — because the good ones usually live next to the bad ones. Then we judge hard against boring, decisive criteria: is the domain gettable, is it trademarkable, does it survive being said down a bad phone line, does it embarrass no one.

What’s left is a short list of names that all work. Choosing between them is where taste and nerve come in — and where a name only becomes “obvious” about a month after you commit to it. Every strong name felt slightly wrong on day one. That’s normal. Pick one, build the world around it, and let it become right.