How to generate web 2.0 names?

You have probably heard about websites such as Pinterest, Zynga, Flickr or Instagram. Those names, characterized as web 2.0-ish, are a step forward from the ordinary this-site-is-about.com names. From the previous article you got an idea what are web 2.0 names in general and now it’s time to get down to it and create some names yourself. If you are thinking about applying web 2.0 naming techniques to your own business, you might want to check the variety of name creation features on NameStation.

Getting down to business

Let´s take the first name on the list – Pinterest. It is a combination of two different words – pin and interest. The domain search tool to use on NameStation to obtain such results most effectively is Combine Lists. It blends two conceptual word lists with the possibility to choose whether you want the whole word to appear in the name or just a part of it.

For example, when looking for a name for a fitness blog, you may combine the lists like Health and Dynamic, Positive and Sport, Your Contest Keywords and Health, etc. It all depends on the concepts that you need to be reflected in the name of your company.

To create business names that include a particular word or a part of this word, choose Append Lists. This feature allows you to combine the word with any of the predetermined conceptual word lists. You can also choose if you want the word to appear at the beginning or at the end of the name.

Even more web 2.0-ish – looking further from compounds

If you don’t need your name to resemble a compound, you should also try the Substitutions Search or Random Name Generator to coin new words such as Zynga or Meebo.

The Random Name Generator is the easiest way to create names that essentially have no meaning; consequently, they won’t evoke any associations with your field of business. Such names could be very distinctive and in addition they enable you to build up the meaning of your brand from scratch.

For a wider selection of name alternatives, you could also use the Random Name feature in different languages, such as French, Latin or even Afrikaans.

Substitutions Search differs from the Random Name Generator in terms of letting you determine some parts of the name you would like your company to have. You just need to follow the key, presented on the right-hand side of the search feature.

For example, if you want to find a name, comprising of 6 letters so that the 1st, 4th and 6th letter are consonants and the rest are vowels, you can create a suitable name pattern with the help of the key. Having done that, you only need to press Search and NameStation will generate names according to your criteria. In case of the previous example, the pattern would be !**!*!.

Some examples of name patterns:

• R?!*** – 6 letters, begins with R, 2nd letter is a vowel and 3rd a consonant
• !?!?graph – ends with graph, preceded by the combination of consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV)
• Tan****! – 8 letters, begins with tan and finishes with a consonant; in between are 4 random letters
• ?!??!? – 6 letters, begins with a vowel, followed by a consonant, 2 vowels and another consonant and a vowel.

 

What are Web 2.0 domain names?

Many of you reading this article are probably struggling with finding a great domain name for your business or have faced the challenge at some point. The most obvious domain names, such as furniture.com, bestwishes.com, mylife.com, have been snapped up by companies or domainers ages ago, and to reach what is left out there requires a fair amount of creative thinking. This is also the reason why web 2.0 domain names have grown increasingly popular.

To be honest, there is no clear definition what makes a domain name web 2.0. The most common criteria you may often hear is that the name should be trendy, cutting-edge and unique. Sounds ambiguous, doesn’t it? It should, because the term itself is rather intuitive and abstract; therefore, most interpretations have at least a tinge of truth in them. Nevertheless, some domain names just seem more web 2.0-ish than others.

Web 2.0 itself refers to websites that enable users to communicate with each other and generate content as opposed to web 1.0, which consists of sites that are plain information providers targeting passive readers. Web 2.0 sites include, for example, social networks, wikis, blogs and other content sharing websites. Facebook and Twitter would be the most obvious examples. Web 2.0 domain names, however, are only related to web 2.0 as much as the fact that such domain names established their popularity together with the development of web 2.0 itself. While a huge number of web 2.0 sites have a name that could be characterized as web 2.0-ish, it is not a must.

Main characteristics of web 2.0 domains

Like I said before, no one has actually established the specific characteristics of a web 2.0 name. However, everyone seems to agree that when the name does not exist as a real word, it is somehow related to web 2.0. Names such as computers.com, plasticbottle.com or coffeeandtea.com obviously do not belong to the group, but domains that look further from the plain dictionary-style could already be called web 2.0-ish.

Typical Examples:

Flickr, Google – misspelled words (flicker, googol)
Facebook, YouTube – while they are simple compounds consisting of two nouns, they had no use before the websites were established
Instagram, Pinterest – combinations of two recognizable parts of real words (instant + telegram, pinboard + interest)

Naturally, these three groups do not encompass all the possible methods of creating web 2.0 domain names. Sometimes the name could be made up from scratch (such as badoo.com) or be a real word with a metaphorical application. For example, amazon.com has essentially nothing to do with the river but the size of the Amazon is used to refer to the sales potential of the online store, which initially focused only on books. All in all, the possibilities are unlimited; you just need a bit of creativity. And of course luck.

Having clarified the essence of web 2.0 names, it would be appropriate to post an article about the simplest methods on how to generate web 2.0 domain names with the help of NameStation. Keep yourself posted!

Click here to find short web 2.0 domain names

Top 25 words in domain search

This list of top 25 words used in domain search is based on search statistics of NameStation Domain Name Generator. To this we have added a number of alternatives. Hopefully this helps inspire a bit of variety when coming up for suitable words.

 Go to Keyword domains search

1. web – online, page, site, home, dot, point, channel, link, click, source, gate, world
2. cloud – stratus, nebula, cirrus, air, grid, mesh, space, ether, sky, serve, virtual, stack, thin, agile, open
3. tech – vac, tron, matic, gadget, logic, sys, digi, robo, auto, mill, motor, rocket, rational, kit, suite, unit
4. business – focus, vision, solutions, alliance, advisor, commerce, office, suite, team
5. deal – save, bargain, budget, cent, dime, discount, drop, less, offers, penny, promo, sale, value, wallet
6. studio – atelier, gallery, lot, scene, location, floor, workshop, forge
7. social – club, group, circle, buddy, connect, crowd, folk, forum, guild, lodge, mate, meet, member, mix, nation, network, nexus, pal, people, public, quorum, set, summit, team, tribe, world
8. design – adapt, create, custom, illustrate, model, shape, form, figure, pattern, make, build, frame, style, variety, class, prototype
9. my – self, ego, own, id, take, be, personal, private, secret, inner
10. shop – boutique, store, market, bazaar, browse, outlet, retail, commerce, vendor, mart, order, merchant, purchase, buyer
11. photo – pic, picture, scene, screen, shoot, shot, snap, studio, film, focus, flash, frame, image, lens
12. game – arcade, compte, contest, goal, mark, player, score, team, trophy
13. buy – cart, catalog, purchase, outlet, store, seller, trade, sale
14. media – connect, interactive, link, report, scoop, public, story, bulletin, broadcast, message, topic
15. smart – brilliant, bright, clever, creative, fox, guide, genius, insight, inspire, intellect, master, mind, prodicy, sharp, specialist, talent, wise, virtuoso
16. host – online, site, server, home, domain, digital, website, access, gate, route, avenue, channel, station, click
17. net – grid, signal, relay, comm, contact, mesh, wire, connect, zone, maze, node, transmit, transfer, pipe, send, scan, post, traffic, uplink, tube, cirquit
18. ad – promo, advert, sell, hype, target, push, drive, boost, campaign, press, force, promote, reach, agency, market, info, target, contact, deliver
19. green – fresh, foliage, leaf, sustainable, preserve, sustain, viable, future, vision
20. go – run, move, travel, jump, act, walk, drive, step, ride, start, launch, begin, enter, embark, kickoff, fire, spring, init
21. pro – expert, ace, maven, analyst, strategist, master, guru, wizard, hotshot, genius
22. app – use, work, utility, device, gizmo, kit, tool, run
23. trip – getaway, leave, leisure, travel, hike, expedition, explore, tour, holiday, journey, passport, sights, takeoff, trail, vacation, wander
24. easy – accessible, bare, basic, breeze, convenient, fot, handy, plain, pure, ready, simple, smooth
25. data – input, format, record, info, stats, table, file, stack, archive, list, storage, save, log, book, track, ledger

Looking for domain name ideas?

Need an available domain name but have no time to spare? There are plenty of domain suggestions sites, but only manage to take the load off your shoulders. This AI domain name ideas generator does the job quite well.

Find Domain Name Ideas

You simply have to think of one single keyword to start with. Click Search and receive more than 100 domain name ideas in a few seconds. Randomainer also gives you a list of alternative keyword suggestions, so that you can continuously elaborate and refine your search. Finding a number of suitable candidates for your perfect domain name should take no more than a few minutes. Creating brand name ideas is a breeze, this tool can save you hours.

Try it out, it’s free.

Finding website name ideas

Have you visited a website having an extremely long domain name? As an unbiased person do you prefer typing those long cumbersome urls in the address bar of your web browser?

Suppose you are planning to start a small business and your business requires you to have an online entity. The first thing that you have to do in this case is finding the right name for your website. Finding the right website name is absolutely imperative for the success of your business online because if your client finds it to cumbersome to visit your website due to any given reason then he/ she might prefer to stay away which in turn would be disastrous for your online enterprise.

Without a proper name no individual in this world has an identity and the same applies to your business to. Without a proper name your business will be passed off as an amateur one which is just looking to make a quick buck and is more interested in cost cutting. In addition to all this when you start giving your business cards to your clients would it look nice to have a shoddy name printed at the bottom? For example when you want to shop online the instant name that comes to mind is ebay and this is because you have visited the site before and the name is easy to remember and spell and it is not complicated so you will visit it again. A few simple guidelines to follow in general are that your name should be easy to spell and it should be as short as possible. The most important thing is that your domain name should be easy to remember.

Some of the many different ways in which you can generate website name ideas are:

1. Random name generators: in this method the automated software will just generate random names. You can specify a suffix or a prefix if required and you can also specify the length of the name that you wish to obtain. The random name generator will create random names that can be pronounced in different languages and not any arbitrary name.

2. Substitutions: By taking normal names from the English dictionary and replacing few characters from it, you can generate a new name altogether.

3. Mix and append: Take two names at a time and append them together to get a new name. For example: fantastic + fabulous = fantabulous; or gigantic + enormous = ginormous; or fun + frolic = folic.

4. Adding extra characters: Using a name which is part of the English vocabulary you can add an extra letter somewhere in the entire word to create a new word/ name that might be used as a name for your website.

5. Playing with Proper nouns: Proper nouns have a specific spelling mentioned in the vocabulary. You can twist and turn them around to create a new name altogether. For example instead of using the word “cool” you can use “kool” which sounds the same.

6. Naming contests: Another innovative website name idea is by holding naming contests online. You can suggest a few guidelines to mention what you are looking for and then hold a contest in which users around the world can register for free and submit their entries. In this method you will find a wide range of names as people from wide genres of society will participate and give you their ideas. Of course there will be a prize money or something that has to be given barring which people will not take interest in the contest.

Finding a potential name for your website is the cornerstone for the success of your enterprise and it is a more time consuming process than you actually think.

Best Available Domain Names

Click here to find available domains

It was Shakespeare who famously said “What’s in name? A rose by any another name would smell just as sweet”.  Well we can’t blame him. Back then there was probably a single rose seller and not thousands, wanting to make an impact in the rose selling business.

Given the current competitive business scenario the name is everything. With the popularity of internet marketing, it is not enough to move your business online, but it is crucial to find the best domain name for your online presence.

The Importance of the Right Domain Name

Domain names are important because they can be a crucial differentiator between a profitable business and one that goes under.  Whether it is the name for a start up business or the name for a new product to be launched by an established company, it is necessary to devote time and energy to research the various name options and finalize one that will satisfy certain parameters. Finding the right domain name is not easy, but there are unique tools and strategies at your disposal to make the process simpler for you.

A good domain name is short and usually below 20 characters. One word domain names are the best and as the number of words increase, the effectiveness falls rapidly. It is necessary to keep the domain name free from aspects such as hyphens and numbers, foreign words or words that tend to be misspelled. But the fact of the matter is as the internet business has been around for the longest time, you may find that all domain names fulfilling these characteristics have been taken. No need to worry though.

Finding Available Domains

This is where specialized domain name suggestion services can help you tremendously. Check out NameStation to create new domain names by a combination of etymology, semantics or language that contain all above mentioned characteristics. They have preset custom word lists that can help you identify niche domain names that can be very powerful.  Name generators offer names in different languages, automatic name suggestion tools are particularly useful for domain professionals in suggesting the best options for their clients.

The Advantage for Name Seekers

NameStation has initiated a new process in the naming business called Social Naming – a platform to interact, research, collaborate and finally decide on the best available domain name for your business. If your company is coming up with a new product, you can enlist the help of your customers to choose a name for the same. NameStation’s public naming contests allow people to send you their name suggestions.  You can imagine the advantages of such a move:

• It helps you develop stronger relations with your customers as they are happy that you want their suggestions.
• As it is online, the customer base you are reaching is wider than possible through any other channel
• You will receive thousands of name suggestions, a few of which may be good and available.

The Advantage for Professional Name Givers

If you are agency that offers name services to clients including domain names, business names or any other names, NameStation offers a platform to enhance your reputation over a period of time. We have a credit point system to appreciate your efforts. You will receive a certain number of points each time your name suggestion is accepted by a client. These points can be redeemed for cash or you can opt for upgrade features on your membership. Simply give them the details of your business/ product/ service/ blog and your target audience and we will come up with a range of the best available domain names for you. With the right tools you can still find the best available domain names that will help your business/ blog/ brand soar online.

 

 

Hold Naming Contests to Find Company Names

Click here to Start a Name Contest

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.

How to find great available domain names?

The recently launched NameStation Domain Search introduces a variety of new high-end domain name search tools.

Try it out: www.namestation.com

There are a number of unique ways to find available domains with fast bulk domain check:

• Name generator that produces names in different languages
• Over 150 preset wordlists for creating compound words
• Custom wordlists for finding niche domains for specific needs
• Smart wordlists for domains with dictionary words
• 40 Top-Level-Domains
• Name research and translations etc.

The Conceptual Wordlists  contain words related to concepts – e.g. fast, secure, unique, dynamic, smart, strong, positive, dynamic, simple, useful. For instance, if you’re looking a name for an anti-virus product, you would use words that are related with security and strength – Castle, Vault, Lock, Wall, Guard etc.

Domain Name Contests can be created to get name ideas for a specific purpose. Contests can be shared with friends or a private team, responses can be rated.

Social Naming. Connect your Facebook account to interact with your friends and participate in their Shared Contests. Share private Contest links  in Facebook and Twitter. Your friends can help with names for anything – when you get a new pet, need a new screen name, role-play character name, start a band or discover a new planet.

Get a Domain Name

Have you ever been inspired by the multitude of useful websites out there on the web and thinking of starting your own website? Some of them seem to be doing quite well. Who wouldn’t like to have their own pet project on the web, gaining a few more users each day and potentially evolving to a serious startup – all you need is a unique idea, a few skilled people and a bit of seed financing. And for an online business, you also need a domain name.

How difficult can it be, right? Well, seeing that you’ve reached this page, it can be assumed that you are by now aware that its not a trivial quest. In fact, by now you have probably spent a lot of time on domain search sites, become frustrated by the fact that most even remotely sensible names are taken, felt hopelessly lost, googled something like “get a domain name” and landed on this page. So welcome, let’s see what can be done.

There are over 80 million .com domains already registered. There are only 13 million .net domains, so if you don’t care that someone already holds the .com name, the .net is the first alternative to consider. If your service is location-specific, you may have better luck with additional extensions like .us, .eu, country-specific domains.

The .com domain though is the cornerstone of establishing an online identity. With a .com you can be certain that the name you’ve chosen is absolutely unique in the whole world. This is a crucial requirement, if you’re planning to invest in building a brand – otherwise you could end up advertising your competitors. Finding a good .com domain takes persistence and patience. If you have the time, you can look up names one-by-one, until you hit the perfect one. You can hire a marketing agency to do it for you or buy an expensive domain from a domain name aftermarket. You can also use automated domain name availability checking tools that do quick mass lookups. Lets take a closer look at one of such tools – in fact its over 10 different domain search tools combined onto one website – NameStation.com.

NameStation is one of the fastest bulk domain lookup tools on the web today. First, you can try your luck with the random name generator tool, which creates 20 pronounceable names each time you press the Search button. There are different base languages to choose from, so if you get tired of English names, why not try Latin, Sindarin or even Klingon? The names are still totally random, but they sound a bit different. Sindarin by the way is the language of elves in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, created by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Now, if you need your name to reflect what your business actually does, you need to include a meaningful keyword. On NameStation, this keyword can then be combined with random nouns, adjectives, verbs and preset wordlists with the most popular prefixes and affixes that usually appear in the website names. You can go even deeper by researching semantic relations to any given keyword with the Dictionary Domains search. At first it may seem as a bit complex but that’s because it is a highly powerful in-depth research tool. Dictionary Domains search also recommends synonyms, related words, popular affixes and prefixes. All you have to do is click on each one of these to get 100 new domain name ideas.

You can most likely find 4-5 potential candidates after working 15 minutes on NameStation. Each candidate can be saved to your Favorites and registered at your preferred registrar. Domain registration is simple, just click the “register at …” link at NameStation and follow the instructions on the registrar page.

There is a lot more to explore at NameStation. For domain industry professionals there are other specialized tools like multiple domain extensions check and bulk domain search. If you create a free NameStation account then over time you can save and customize your keyword lists that help you find available domains any time any time you’re hit with a spark of inspiration for a new online venture.

Best of luck finding a new domain name! If you have any useful tips that may benefit fellow domain seekers then please post them as  comments.

Company name origins – starting with “C”

• CA – Computer Associates was founded in 1976 as Computer Associates International, Inc. by Charles Wang
• Cadillac – named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.
• Canon – Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company’s first camera, the Kwanon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.
• Caterpillar – Originally Holt Tractor Co, merged with Best Tractor Co. in 1925. A company photographer exclaimed aloud of a Holt tractor that the tracks’ movement resembled a caterpillar moving along the ground. The name stuck.
• Casio – from the name of its founder, Kashio Tadao, who had set up the company Kashio Seisakujo as a subcontractor factory.
• Chevrolet – named after company co-founder Louis Chevrolet, a Swiss-born auto racer. The company was merged into General Motors in 1917 and survives only as a brand name.
• Chrysler – named after the company founder, Walter P. Chrysler.
• Cisco – short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was “CIS-co”: Computer Information Services was the department at Stanford University where the founders worked.
• Citroën – named after André-Gustave Citroën (1878–1935), a French entrepreneur of Dutch descent. He was the fifth and last child of the Dutch Jewish diamond merchant Levie Citroen and Mazra Kleinmann (of Warsaw, Poland). The Citroen family moved to Paris from Amsterdam in 1873 where the name changed to Citroën.
• Coca-Cola – derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the ‘K’ of kola to ‘C’ to make the name look better.
• Colgate-Palmolive – formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York City in 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.
• Compaq – from computer and “pack” to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company’s first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.
• COMSAT – a contraction of communications satellites. This American digital telecommunications and satellite company was founded during the era of U.S. President John F. Kennedy era to develop the technology.
• Corel – from Cowpland Research Laboratory, after the name of the company’s founder, Dr. Michael Cowpland.
• Cray – supercomputer company named after its founder, Seymour Cray.
• CVS – originally Consumer Value Stores. CEO Tom Ryan has said he now considers ‘CVS’ to stand for “Customer, Value, and Service”.