6 Steps to Naming: It's the same for Kids, Bands or Businesses

If you've ever had to name something- a band, a business, your sock collection, your first car - or even a child- you know how difficult of a thing it can be. It's such a huge challenge in part because names are not something that you can change regularly; more often than not, a name is for life, so you'd better pick it well.

This is a whole lot of pressure. I forgot how much pressure it was until recently when my partners and I were trying to come up with a name for a contest we'll hopefully be working on with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a few other music companies.

We first came up with the name Kicknote.com just about a year ago, and it was absolutely nerve-wracking. I know that I personally spent 4 consecutive days locked in a room trying to come up with a name that fit ALL of the very specific and demanding criteria below.

These should be the things you consider when picking your domain name:

1. Short- 8 characters or less. (This is important for Internet-only companies, other companies can have names that are a bit longer) EXTREMELY tough to get domain names of 8 characters or less on the internet these days, mostly because it's easier to remember short domains than long ones.
2. Easy to spell/say. If no one can spell or say your domain name, no one goes to your site and your company/band/(child?)/whatever fails.
3. Has to do with music. (or whatever your business category/name is) We weren't super-strict on this one, but if you'll notice both kick and note are musically related. Kick is a slang term for what is commonly the largest drum in a drum kit, the bass drum. Note is pretty obvious. It's a lot harder to create a fake word, and people are less likely to remember it.
   
4. Isn't discriminating to certain genres of music. (Doesn't focus in too specifically on a certain sub-set of your business or cut out any part of your fan base) It had to do with music, but it had to do with all kinds of music, not just one or 2 specific types. This means we couldn't have a stupid name like What Bands Want (oops!) or RapZone (I just made that up right now, and actually it's pretty cool) or something like that.
5. Doesn't sound stupid. This one was unbelievably tough. My web designer swears that I literally went insane for part of this naming process, somewhere around the time I suggested the name "PickUrNote.com". Some of the names I came up with were so 'out there' that he claims the only way I could have come up with them was to be locked in a padded cell for a week. He didn't know that I was actually only locked in my padded cell for 4 consecutive days. (See the complete list of names we came up with at the end of this post).
6. Domain is available. You spend 4 days locked in a padded cell and the name is taken. "THE NAME IS TAKEN!?!?!?!?!? Where is that *%$%^%^&^%, I'll go to their house and pry that domain name out of their cold dead hands! I just spent a week locked in a padded cell coming up with that great domain name and it's mine!!!!!"
   

So yes, any way you slice it, naming sucks bigtime. But once it's done and you finally come up with something good, you're amazingly happy because you've usually got a great name that will last you a lifetime and you're finally done naming! At least for now...

Next you have to come up with the logo, which is almost as fun.

Side note: I didn't mention that it should be a .com instead of a .net or .biz. If you're a business or band you'll want a .com over a .net any day. Things like .tv are getting more popular for things like video channels, but .net and .biz have never stuck and probably won't at any point in the foreseeable future, so do your best to stay with .com if you want to succeed.


Bonus- here are some of the "finalists" for the name of our website during my 4-day padded cell extravaganza. I think itll be pretty obvious why most of them didn't make the cut. Please comment on the ridiculous ones, I want to see some hilarious blog comments. These are in the order we came up with them:

KICKDABASS.COM

STOP4MUSIC.COM

TUNEFROG.COM

ARTISTFISH.COM

BIZMUFF.COM

BIZMUF.COM

SHORTGLASS.COM

VULDRO.COM

VULDRA.COM

COCOTUNE.COM

TUNEGUM.COM

GUMTUNE.COM

COCANOTE.COM

MUSITOWN.COM

2TUNETOWN.COM

TUNETIE.COM

TUNESOCK.COM

JADENOTE.COM

MANGONOTE.COM

ROSENOTE.COM

STEELNOTE.COM

TUNELAKE.COM

PICKURNOTE.COM

TUNEBOAT.COM

MUTENOTE.COM

NONONOTE.COM

KICKNOTE.COM (winner!)

ARTEMUSIS.COM

CHARTMUSE.COM

MUSILAUNCH.COM

MUSIKICK.COM

ARTMUSIS.COM

ARTMUSI.COM

ARTEISUM.COM

SLINGSHOW.COM

MUSLICK.COM

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