How To Name Your Startup in 2020

Dave deCourcelle
Oct 22, 2020
2 min read

Updated: Dec 14, 2020

Given how cluttered the startup landscape is getting, we've put together the strategic process, tips, and pitfalls when creating a company name in 2020.

STEP 1: Brainstorm Phase

Fundamental Naming Routes:

1) Descriptive Company Names: Fairly explicit about what your business is and does. Examples include Whole Foods, Toys "R" Us and PayPal.

Pros:

Helps with positioning

Cons:

Typically hard to find available domain names for your perfect company name idea

2) Suggestive Company Names: Evokes or suggests what your business or product is about, often via metaphor. Examples include Amazon, which suggests a giant river/huge selection, and Mint, where money is created.

Pros:

Helps with positioning

Cons:

Could be obscure depending on cultural perception / differences

3) Abstract Company Names: Has nothing directly to do with your company’s offering. Examples include Adobe and Apple.

Pros:

Can be more memorable
Easier to trademark

Cons:

Risk being too obscure or complicated
Does not help with positioning
Will require more work with brand awareness for people to connect the name to a product / service or benefit

Tips, Tricks, and Resources for Brainstorming

Take your written-out positioning statement and break it into nouns and verbs.
For every meaningful word you can isolate, create a full list of synonyms. Go to thesaurus.com and just capture them all. Make a huge list
Real words: Repurposed words (Examples: Apple, Gain, Square)
Compounds: Two words fused together (Salesforce, Facebook)
Blends: Part of one word combined with part of another (Pinterest, Microsoft)
Affixes: Tack something on like -er or -ly (Blogger, Contently)
Truncations: Shorten a word or concept (Cisco is a clipped version of San Francisco)
Other languages: Words that mean or suggest what you want to convey in other languages (Reebok, Asana)

STEP 2: Validation Phase

This is the more challenging aspect of the naming process, as the startup needs to vet the name by a variety of important checks and balances. If the name fails any of the checks, it is out of the running.

Does your name sound similar to competitors' companies or products?
Does the name reflect your company values?
Does it have an available domain name?
Does it have an available Trademark?
Distinctiveness
Reflection of your key messaging
Sound and ease of pronunciation (more important than you might think)
Appearance (literally, how pleasing or logical is it to the eye?)
Length (a two-syllable word can be preferable because it’s not too long but more distinctive than a single syllable)