Naming Your Startup: A Practical Framework

Most startup naming mistakes come from optimizing for cleverness at launch instead of clarity at scale.

Run every candidate name through three filters: does it say enough about the category to reduce explaining, does it sound different enough from close competitors, and is the matching domain actually available.

A name does not need to describe the product perfectly — Stripe does not sound like payments — but it should be short enough that the brand can do the explaining over time.

Once you have two or three finalists, test them with five people outside the company before committing.