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by mmariani 4928 days ago
Great story. It shows that doesn't matter if you are Apple or a solo developer, product naming is hard. Actually, as the OP, I find coding easier. Nevertheless, we can't ship products with placeholder names. I have a little brainstorming process that goes like this:

1) List the name of all competitors that made into the business plan; // this is important mainly to avoid problems

2) List of nouns that evoke a basic understanding of the root problem the program tries to solve; // I know it's obvious, but finding a name right here create an instant connection with your target users

3) List all the features that make the program stand out; // Again it's obvious, yet this is a great source of names

4) Mix and match all these these words, throw them into a bucket, and sleep on it for a while;

5) Usually, after some days have passed I come back, and weed out the crapy ones; // and...

6) Work a little more on the rest with a dictionary, if needed go back to 3;

7) Finally, when I have a short list of good names I try to find domain names;

8) mkdir <project_name> // or mv <old> <new> :)

How do you go about your process?

1 comments

Ours is pretty much like that, with one more step: Google each candidate name. Those that get few hits or hits that are completely unrelated to the problem domain get a +1.