Hold Naming Contests to Find Company Names

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Whenever starting a new business, one of the main aspects to consider besides the idea itself is what it should be called. The power of a good name should not be underestimated. Choosing the right name can enhance the success of your company; on the other hand, making the wrong choice may sometimes be costly or doom the venture to failure. For example, Chevy Nova by General Motors’ was unsuccessful in Latin America because the company failed to notice the fact that “Nova” in Spanish stands for “it doesn’t go”.

In general, it is not hard to come up with a name for your business; however, when taking into account a number of characteristics that a good name needs, the name-search could become rather excruciating. To make matters worse, there is no consensus on the features of a good name. Some believe that the best names are informative so that the customers immediately know what your business is about. Others favour newly coined names (like Kodak, Intel, Nike) over already existing words, claiming that the former are more memorable. Finally there are those who for attention-grabbing purposes insist on a name beginning with a plosive letter (like B, C, D, G, K, P and T).

When looking for a name, one of the most important aspects to consider is checking whether there are any available and relevant domain names in accordance with the name you chose for your business. Moreover, since there are already about 200 million registered domain names, the process of finding a good name could potentially turn out to be more time-consuming than initially thought.

Creating Name Ideas

The website name generator NameStation helps to make this process easier for you. It offers a great number of opportunities to coin and combine words, so that you will never feel that your creativity has reached a dead end. Within seconds, you can generate hundreds of domain name suggestions. In addition there are several applications to help you with that, such as creating compound words with preset wordlists or words that you prefer to feature in the name of your future business. Among other possibilities, the system also offers word-substitutions, alliterative word combinations and translations to and from English. Furthermore, when creating new names the system automatically checks domain name availability.

Social Naming Contests

NameStation is a social naming service, allowing you to create public naming contests to find a name for your business. Holding a name contest with NameStation enables you to benefit from a global brainstorming event in essence, since the contests are open to suggestions from participants from all over the world. Everyone is free to contribute ideas to their own liking, with or without using the help of the system. You may choose to hide the responses from the participants to avoid distraction. Furthermore, you can easily interact with the participants through comments asking them for reasons behind their name suggestions if they have not added those from the start. It is also possible to connect with Facebook and ask your friends to contribute their ideas to the name-search.

Available Domain Names

In general, it is advisable that the .com extension of a domain name is available. With an urge to reach the market fast, some entrepreneurs often opt for the .net version if the .com is not available anymore, later regretting the decision. Consequently, when searching for the website, potential customers accidentally flock to the .com version, possibly never reaching their actual desired destination – that is your website.

After finding a suitable name, test it on a sample of potential customers to avoid mishaps like the Chevy Nova case and to find out whether the name is relevant, memorable and likeable. A good domain name is the corner stone of your online brand and when searching for it, remember to consider the long-term perspective. Contemplate future options for your business in order not to discover after a year that you are trapped in your domain name. When you feel it is a looming possibility, you can always start a new name contest at NameStation.

New Domain Name Search Features at NameStation.com Help Find Available Domains

NameStation.com, an advanced domain search engine, launched several search methods that help save time and resources when looking for available domain names.

(PRWEB) March 22, 2010 — NameStation.com, an advanced domain name search website, launched several search methods that help save time and resources when looking for available domains. With just a few clicks users can easily generate hundreds of random name suggestions, search for niche keywords or combine their business-specific terms with preset wordlists.

“Finding a suitable domain name is crucial for everyone who is about to start developin an online identity. The quest for good available domains is not easy, it may take significant time and effort,” said Tauno Novek, CEO or NameStation. “The goal of NameStation is to minimize that effort by suggesting hundreds of ideas for available domain names. Since each product or brand has to be unique and memorable, we have recently added several innovative search methods for finding names with custom keywords, wordlists and semantic analysis.”

Want to create unique random names that are based on different languages and have available .com or .net domain names? Prefer to digg deeper and take advantage of the more sophisticated research tools like wordlist searches, dictionary domains search; or use the bulk search tools to check up to 100 domain names at a time? With the newly added capabilities, NameStation.com is one of the most versatile free domain search engines on the Internet today.

Some of the key features of NameStation are:

• Random Domain Name Generator that creates phonetic names based on various language rules. Besides names that are pronounceable in English, users can choose from over 30 other languages – Italian, Spanish, Latin, German, Russian and fictional languages like Klingon and Sindarin.
• Domain suggestions with word lists – preset keyword themes can be used to produce relevant names. Themes like Technology, Search, Social, Banking & Finance, Business and Services, Sports & Shopping contain lists of words that people would otherwise have to create and check manually.
• Dictionary domains search finds synonyms and contextual relations for the entered keyword. Since most dictionary domains in the .com and .net Top Level Domains are taken, we have added a simple way of appending a prefix of suffix to the search criteria by just clicking on the recommended words.
• The domain name brainstorming tool is perhaps one of the most useful of the advanced search features. Enter a list of keywords that are then combined with random affixes to produce new unique name ideas.
• Bulk domain search can be used to look up the availability of up to 100 words or phrases simultaneously. Words can be imported from other keyword research tools like Google Keyword tool or Wordtracker.
• Search multiple Top Level Domains (TLD-s) simultaneously. Besides .com and .net NameStation supports searching for over 30 domain extensions, including .mobi, .tv. .info, .eu, .co.uk and so on.

NameStation.com domain search is free to use. Users who register gain the additional benefits of saving name ideas to their Favorites list and securely maintain their custom wordlists that can be accessed anywhere. Feedback to the new features is most welcome at our blog (http://blog.NameStation.com).

How To Avoid A Business Naming Disaster

An entrepreneur of my acquaintance, in a rush to get his new company up and running, launched his new online publishing venture with a press release and great industry fanfare. Not three days later, he received the kind of letter business owners dread: a cease-and-desist request from the lawyer for a company that said the name of the new venture infringed on their trademark. Ouch!

My colleague held emergency brainstorming sessions with his cronies, registered a new domain, announced the name change, only to receive a barrage of criticism from British and Australian colleagues that for them, the new name had negative and even somewhat obscene connotations. He changed the company name and corresponding URL again.

The moral of the story: Names matter. In your inventor’s zeal for getting the technical stuff right, don’t leave a blank for the company name and then pick one at the last minute. Take the time to choose a business name that has these characteristics:

• Suggests the content or subject area of your business
• Has pizzazz
• Makes a positive impression on your target market
• Can be easily spelled and pronounced
• If the company will mainly do business online, corresponds to an available domain
• Is legally available for use

Tips for Brainstorming Names

A comprehensive, free guide to brainstorming a winning company name can be found at http://www.yudkin.com/generate.htm. Another series of steps to follow are these:

1. Find 8-10 company names that you like – not necessarily in your own industry.

2. Analyze the type or formation of these names. For instance:

• Google, Yahoo – short, sounds humorous
• Dr. Pepper, Green Giant – based on a fictitious character
• Done Yesterday, Call Caren! – describes a result or says what to do
• Speedy Muffler, One Stop Frame Shop – states the competitive advantage
• A Quiet Touch, Tranquility Day Spa – emphasizes a feeling
• Queen of Clean, A Hire Authority – catchy, uses a meaningful rhyme or pun
• Riviera Diamonds, Niagara Well Services – evocative geographical reference

3. Use the patterns of the names you like to think up new names that fit your line of work, target audience, competitive strengths and personal preferences. Always brainstorm dozens of possibilities, not just a few.

4. Run your candidates through the criteria listed above. Get feedback from trusted friends, clients and colleagues. Select your top choice from those remaining.

Domain Names

To find available domain names go to the domain name search tool at NameStation.com