How to Name a Startup

Naming a startup is one of those decisions that feels small until you’re a year in and realize you can’t change it cheaply. The cost of a name change after launch — rebrand all materials, lose accumulated SEO, update legal entities, retrain customers — typically runs into months of work and tens of thousands of dollars. Picking carefully up front pays off.

This guide walks through the five major categories of brand names, the practical constraints that filter candidates, and a workflow founders can follow to converge on something defensible.

Five categories of brand names

Brand naming literature (David Placek of Lexicon Branding, the firm that named Intel, Pentium, BlackBerry, and Swiffer, among others) consistently divides brand names into five buckets (Wikipedia: Brand):

1. Descriptive

The name says what the business does. General Motors, American Airlines, International Business Machines, PayPal.

Pros: Instant understanding. Zero teaching cost.
Cons: Often unprotectable as trademarks (generic terms). Constrains pivot.
When to use: Crowded categories where clarity beats memorability. Government and B2B contracts.

2. Suggestive

The name hints at function without stating it. Netflix (internet + flix), Microsoft (microcomputer + software), Salesforce (sales + force), YouTube (you + tube/TV).

Pros: Easier to teach than invented; more memorable than descriptive.
Cons: Many obvious combinations are taken; less distinctive than invented.
When to use: Default zone for tech startups. ~60% of recent unicorns sit here.

3. Invented

A coined word with no prior meaning. Kodak, Verizon, Zynga, Spotify, Tylenol, Häagen-Dazs.

Pros: Maximum trademark protection. Unique globally if you check.
Cons: Higher marketing cost to teach what the name means. May feel artificial early.
When to use: Consumer products with marketing budget. Long-term brand investments.

4. Real-word

A common English word, unrelated to the business. Apple (computers), Amazon (bookstore originally), Twitter (microblogging), Slack, Square, Bumble.

Pros: Maximum memorability. Easy to spell. Connotation can become an asset.
Cons: Often expensive to acquire .com. Existing word may have other associations.
When to use: When you have budget for domain acquisition + the word’s natural meaning aligns with your brand promise.

5. Founder-name

Uses a personal name. Ford, Disney, Tesla (named for Nikola Tesla), Levi’s, McDonald’s, Calvin Klein.

Pros: Personal accountability signal. Common in professional services and consumer goods.
Cons: Tied to one person. Harder to exit / sell. Limits scalability of brand.
When to use: Professional services, fashion, restaurants, family businesses.

Constraints in order of strictness

A candidate name must clear these in order. Most names get killed at step 2 or 3.

1. Pronounceability across markets

Read the name aloud. Have five non-technical friends read it cold. If 2+ stumble or mispronounce, it fails. Xobni (Inbox reversed) is the cautionary example — a YC startup that pivoted away partly because nobody could spell or say it.

Check for unintended translations in your target markets. Examples of classic mistakes:

Nova — Portuguese: “doesn’t go” (sometimes mythologized about Chevrolet, but the translation is real)
Bimbo — bread brand huge in Mexico; English connotation breaks brand outside Latin America
Pinky (KFC test) — slang in some Asian markets

2. Domain availability

.com is still the trust-anchor TLD for most B2C and broad B2B markets. Check .com first. Common patterns when .com is taken:

Buy from owner — most parked domains sell $500-5,000 for unused 6-letter combinations. Negotiate with dan.com or similar broker.
Use .io / .dev / .ai — acceptable for developer-focused products. Be prepared for users typing your-domain.com and ending up at someone else’s site.
Add a prefix — getX.com, tryX.com, useX.com patterns. Workable but dilutes the brand long-term.
Pick a different name — usually the cleanest option.

3. Trademark availability

Check USPTO TESS (US) or EUIPO (EU) for trademark applications and registrations in your industry class. A name passing both .com and trademark is rare — when you find one, lock it down.

Trademark classes that matter for tech startups:

Class 9: Software (downloadable + SaaS)
Class 35: Business services, advertising
Class 41: Education, training
Class 42: SaaS hosted services, design

Typical cost for a startup: $250-300 per class per country (USPTO 1(b) intent-to-use filing).

4. Memorability test

Tell five people the name once. The next day, ask them to recall it. Names recalled by 3+ out of 5 pass. Names recalled by fewer fail; either the name is too generic or too complex.

A workflow that works

Day 1: Brainstorm 100 candidates across all five categories. Don’t filter. Tools like our Business Name Generator, AI Business Name Generator, or Brand Name Generator can help generate quickly.

Day 2: Cut to 20 by pronunciation + initial gut-feel rating.

Day 3: Cut to 5 by .com availability (use our generator’s inline domain check on Business / Brand / Company tools — checks .com via RDAP and shows availability + a direct registrar link).

Day 4: Trademark search top 5 in USPTO TESS. Cut to 1-3.

Day 5: Memorability test top 3 with friends + target users.

Day 6-7: Sleep on it. The right name still feels right after 48 hours. The wrong name feels worse.

Day 8: Buy .com + file trademark intent-to-use.

Total: ~1 week. Founders who spend longer often over-optimize; founders who skip steps often regret it.

Common pitfalls

Picking a name you love but no one can spell. Häagen-Dazs works for established brands; it doesn’t work for unknown startups. People can’t type what they can’t spell.
Going with getX.com because X.com is taken. The owner of X.com gets all your typos. Getaround eventually became getaround.com after pricey domain acquisition.
Naming after a feature. Squareup started as a way to take credit-card payments via a small square reader. As they expanded to a full payments platform, the Square part stayed, the reader name dropped. Pick names that survive feature pivots.
Acronyms that mean nothing. KFC worked because Kentucky Fried Chicken already had brand equity. XYZ Tech doesn’t work — you’re starting from zero.
Too generic when you scale. General Motors was bold in 1908; today, Stripe feels more modern than General Payments.

Quick-start tools

Business Name Generator — industry vocab + style filter, with inline .com availability check
AI Business Name Generator — describe your business in plain language, get tailored suggestions
Brand Name Generator — short, memorable invented words and portmanteaus
Company Name Generator — formal company names with corporate suffixes