How to name your product without agonising for weeks
A practical process for landing a name that's clear, available and won't embarrass you in two years.
Naming paralysis is real, and it's expensive: whole launches sit still while someone waits for lightning. The way out is to treat naming as a filter, not a flash of inspiration.
Start with the job, not the vibe
Write one sentence describing what the thing does for whom. "It fixes weak AI prompts for busy people." Names that gesture at the job are easier to remember than names that gesture at a mood.
Generate in categories
- Descriptive: says what it does. Easy to understand, harder to own.
- Metaphor: borrows meaning from elsewhere. Memorable, needs a tagline.
- Invented: made-up word. Fully ownable, needs marketing budget.
- Compound: two plain words stuck together. The sweet spot for most small products.
Produce ten candidates per category. Volume kills preciousness, and the eleventh idea is usually better than the first.
Run the five tests
- Phone test: say it aloud; can someone spell it back without help?
- Search test: does it collide with something bigger than you?
- Domain test: can you get a decent address, even if not the exact .com?
- Trademark test: a quick register search in your market, before you print anything.
- Room test: can you say it in a meeting without explaining the joke?
Beware the two classic traps
The first is over-specifying: name it after your current single feature and you'll rename it after your second one. The second is misspelling for availability — dropping vowels buys you a domain and costs you every future word-of-mouth referral.
Decide in a day
Shortlist three, sleep on it once, then pick. A good-enough name shipped this week beats a perfect name shipped next quarter, because the product does most of the work of making a name feel right. Nobody thought "Prompt Doctor" was inevitable before it existed either.