With the help of Google’s Text-to-speech you can now hear how a generated name sounds in English. Simply click on the speaker icon in the domain search results to bring up the media player.
NameStation Blog
With the help of Google’s Text-to-speech you can now hear how a generated name sounds in English. Simply click on the speaker icon in the domain search results to bring up the media player.
If purchasing a domain from the aftermarket fits your budget, you’ll be pleased to know that NameStation now has basic Sedo integration. Sedo is the world’s largest domain marketplace, and your budget permitting, there are often affordable offers you might want to consider.
If a domain is listed in Sedo, a link is added to the Fast Domain Check results.
How to use NameStation most efficiently? Following this guide will instantly increase your domain search expertise.
NameStation’s domain search tools are grouped into 3 categories:
Feeling lucky? The simplest way to create made up names with no meaning is by spinning the Random Name Generator. Such names may have no meaning at all, therefore they won’t invoke any associations with your area of business or niche. However, names like these can be very distinctive and may become great brands – e.g. Plaxo, Meebo, Zynga.
To get more variations, experiment with other languages like Latin or Italian. If you don’t care about pronunciation, select Random Letters from the Language list.
The Prefix and Suffix are optional. This can be a single character or a short word, e.g. a, go, dev. Try clicking Select underneath the text boxes. This brings up a list of short affixes, if the box is empty. If there is a keyword in the box, it brings up a list of alternative keywords and the word definition. Simply click on any of those words to run a search.
Naturally, the basis for any meaningful name is a real word. There are limitless ways words can be combined, twisted, affixed, blended, shortened and so on. Even before you start the search, it helps tremendously if you have a list of suitable words that are somehow relevant to what you’re naming. If you have no time for this, don’t worry, we have over 150 preset lists with about 20000 selected words that you can begin with.
Consider starting your quest with creating a Name Contest (even if you’re the only one working on it). Think of it as a private naming project. It helps you organize name ideas and keywords. Perhaps you’ll want to share the contest later on to get feedback.
To every Contest you can add any number of keywords, which are then used in Domain Search forms. About 20-30 keywords should get you started.
Here’s a technique that helps you find 30 keywords in less than 5 minutes. Let’s say you need a name for a reviews website. The first words that come to mind are review, rate, compare, feedback, score. Add them to your Contest. Then, open up Onelook Reverse Dictionary and look for alternative words. Searching for score brings up hundreds of words, e.g. rank, merit, assess, value, judge, critic, evaluate etc. Even if some of these are only remotely relevant, you have nothing to lose if you add them to your Contest. You’ll be surprised how well blending or combining them will work. Go on and search also with the newly added words. Evaluate brings up grade, mark, appraise, gauge, praise. All these are a great for a reviews-related website.
An alternative to adding words to a Contest is starting your own Wordlists, which can be used in Domain Searches the same way as Contest Keywords.
For names with a clearer meaning, let’s take a closer look at some of the more advanced features we are offering.
Putting two words together offers a limitless number of combinations for unique meaningful names. They may be a bit longer than other kinds of names, but they’re relatively easy to find and good for SEO. WordPress, Netvibes, Firefox, Facebook, Bloglines are all examples of great compound names.
A good place to start is Adding Lists to a keyword. Choose from over 150 collections of words to create combined names. You can also select your Custom Wordlists or Contest Keywords. Simply click on Browse underneath the dropdown box to see all available Lists.
Most people find Conceptual Lists especially helpful. E.g. the Fast list has words that relate to speed (lightning, cheetah, express). If you need a name for a banking product, try lists like Secure, Strong, Unique.
For an automotive blog, try Vehicles and Driving. For a healthy recipes site, try Vegetables, Fruits – you get the idea.
Which primary keyword to use? Some of the most popular keywords being used are tech, web, cloud, pro which rarely bring up good available combinations. Instead, try to widen your search as much as possible. So in addition to pro, you can try smart, think, focus, expert, talent – such alternatives can be easily found with Onelook.
If you created a collection of words earlier, you can combine the entire list with other lists as described in the following passage.
In addition to appending a list to a single keyword, you can Combine two lists, e.g. Travel+Comparison. Or Your Contest Keywords+Unique etc.
This is where the list of words you saved earlier becomes most useful. Given that you have assembled a long enough list of base words, finding suitable names should be a breeze.
Some of the unconventional list combinations may produce unique gems of names. Think out of the box, try unconventional lists – e.g. Containers, Shapes, Sounds. Take a moment and explore all available lists. Some of them apply for almost any occasion, e.g. Prefixes, Suffixes, Top Keywords, English Prefixes, Search, Dynamic.
The Alliterations search is another way of creating Compounds by appending words that have the same sound with the word you entered. Examples of such names would be Coca-Cola, PayPal, Borders Books, Donald Duck.
Entering Apple will produce AppleApplet, AppleAppeal etc. Best matches are listed first. With the search options you can choose, whether to prepend or append the alliterative words. You can also choose to match the endings of the words to produce ApplePeople, AppleRipple etc..
Blends
Blends consist of two parts, at least one of which is a portion of a word rather than a whole word – e.g. Technorati, Wikipedia, Netscape. Blends can be short, elegant and memorable and have all the advantages of compound words.
The Variations Search creates Blends by finding dictionary words that partially overlap with your keyword. Entering Domain will produce Domaindex, Domainspire etc. Best matches are listed first.
In addition to complete keywords, try partial words to find overlaps. Start with Innovate, then try innov, inno, innove etc.
Blending Lists is one of the most popular ways to search at NameStation and for a reason. This is again one of those searches where Contest Keywords or a niche wordlist becomes handy. Simply select 2 lists of words, choose the desired length and run the search to create randomly blended words.
Short names have 5-6 characters but are mostly taken. Your best bet would be Medium length, which have about 6-8 characters.
Part 2 coming soon …
Image: Nick Bilton/The New York Times
During the last couple of years, an increasingly popular phenomenon has gained attention in the field of marketing – the verbing of business names.
One of the most notable examples is naturally Google, a word that is probably applied more often as a verb than a company name. While today many start-ups consciously opt for names that can later be easily turned into verbs as a part of their branding strategy, this has not always been the case.
In the past, companies were not particularly fond of the idea of verbing their brand names. They feared losing control of their brand, that one day the verb could become so general it would start to signal all the similar products in the market, distancing itself from its original meaning. Finally, you could end up with a genericised trademark and lose your legal protection, like happened with Aspirin, Thermos, Zipper or Butterscotch. Consider the case of Xerox, who put a lot of effort into encouraging its customers to ‘photocopy’ their papers instead of “xeroxing” them. While the company has somehow managed to preserve its trademark, there are now plenty of people who “xerox” their documents even on HP or Canon machines. Moreover, the meaning of the word has evolved even further, so when someone calls you a Xeroxer, it means you have probably been copying someone else’s style, ideas or possessions.
Do such developments still pose a real threat to companies? Presumably, but we have reached the point where businesses are increasingly starting to notice the benefits of verbing. First and foremost, it is one of the most effective means of extending brand recognition. Google was one of the first companies to take advantage of this, hoping that the popularity of “googling” would translate into more people opting for that particular search engine instead of its competitors. The Irish author Oscar Wilde has successfully managed to summarise the idea behind it into one sentence: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Even Microsoft is trying to apply this knowledge to its search engine Bing – so next time you are looking for information, you might want to “bing” it instead of “googling” it. Or perhaps not. Bing has probably missed the train, since “googling” has already become too strongly associated with the process of using an Internet search engine, it might be a rather futile attempt to dethrone the word. More likely, people will eventually end up “googling” on Bing rather than “binging”. While the threat of losing their trademark is still there for Google – a triumph for Microsoft, no doubt –, the search engine has already benefited more from verbing than it could possibly lose in the future.
Why some businesses turn into verbs and others don’t?
This is not something that is thoroughly dependent on the company’s strategy. While you can choose a name whose characteristics give it greater potential to be verbed or encourage people to use your name as a verb, you normally cannot make this decision for them. More often than not companies with the most impact on human experience coin new verbs; therefore, what you are offering matters more than the features of the name itself. At first PayPal probably did not seem like the case for potential verbing, however, by now it is common to “paypal” money instead of shipping it.
Many company names have turned into verbs because the offered services or products have been revolutionary or innovative in some ways. Google benefited from the fact that beforehand there was no exact term to denote conducting an Internet search. The same happened with Skype. Xerox, on the other hand, probably caught on because earlier photocopying had not been exactly something you would do on a daily basis. Another aspect to the matter is that the verb should denote one particular activity. After all, despite the popularity, we still don’t Apple, PowerPoint, Excel or Novell. If you “powerpointed” something, what would you actually be doing? Creating a PowerPoint presentation? Conducting a PowerPoint presentation? Or maybe neither of those actions. And even if you actually used PowerPoint a lot, it isn’t really that common a topic that you would talk about often enough for it to become a verb.
Sometimes it does not even have to be the exact name of the business that is verbed. Consider Twitter and “tweeting”, a word singularly associated with the company and its website. Or what about “unfriend”? I dare say there is only one company this word can remind you of and while you may unfriend people in many social networking sites, we first think of Facebook. Consequently, in marketing it is not always important that the verb is the exact copy of your business name, while more attention should paid to having certain words associated with your company instead. So when someone mentions “followers”, no matter the context, your brain very likely registers “Twitter”, even if it is just for a second, and the next time you sit at your computer, the previous event makes you subconsciously go to the page and tweet something.
Which names are you using as verbs in everyday communication?
Credit Points are awarded for upvoted and winning names at Public Contests. For every 500 Points you receive, NameStation will transfer $50 to your Paypal account.
When a new Public Contest is created, an alert is published here. Those who are quick to react have a greater chance of getting positive feedback. Alerts are also published at NameStation’s Twitter feed.
The key to earning more Points is posting creative name ideas. Learn from this guide how to make use of NameStation’s domain search features and find relevant names.
NameStation’s random domain name generator is for creating generic pronounceable names with no meaning. Today’s release includes several enhancements:
Tips & Techniques:
As always, we’d like to hear from you so that we could keep improving NameStation!
Have you got any tips for our Knowledge Base or any feature requests? Would you like us to add more languages or targeted Wordlists? The Support Site is open for suggestions.
Starting today, parts of NameStation are available for paying customers only. Premium users get access to all Domain Search tools, Keyword Research features, Domain Name Contests, Custom Wordlists etc. Compare plans and upgrade here.
Advanced domain search
Research tools for finding good available domains require a high level of sophistication that NameStation can only provide with a sustainable business model. Granted, there are similar sites out there that let you search for available domains for free. NameStation is not a conventional domain lookup service. We’re committed to becoming the prime destination for anyone looking for domain name ideas by providing fast, user-friendly and intuitive research tools that produce relevant results and actually save time.
With the freemium model we can dedicate much more resources to maintain the quality of service and keep continuously evolving. Already, the new version of NameStation incoporates years worth of experience obtained from the previous domain name generator and addresses a number of feature requests from our users.
You’re welcome to post new requests to our support forum.
Do I get value for my money?
We certainly hope so. If your business is to provide name ideas to other people, then at NameStation you can potentially find hundreds of niche domain names each month. If you’re just looking for a single domain name, you can probably find it in a much shorter time. There are no long-term commitments, you can cancel or downgrade at any time. If you cancel, you’ll be billed for the current month, but you won’t be billed again.
If you’re not completely satisfied with the service or fail to find the perfect name, we’ll refund your money.
What do I get for free?
Users with the Basic plan can create private and shared naming contests, generate random phonetic domain names and try the advanced lookup tools without the real-time availability check.
Bloggers reviewing NameStation may be eligible for a free upgrade to evaluate the service, simply send an email to [email protected]
Tauno Novek,
Founder of NameStation
We’re pleased to announce the launch of NameStation.
NameStation is a social website for finding name ideas and available domains. You can hold private naming contests and get friends to suggest ideas, post ratings and feedback. A variety of high-end domain name search tools make it easier to find available domains.
For businesses, holding a naming contest is an excellent marketing opportunity to engage potentially thousands of contestants.
Here are some of the major features in NameStation:
Naming 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. Later on, holding an optional Voting Round with selected name ideas helps filter out the best candidates.
Businesses can create Public Contests and offer awards to get customers involved in the earliest stages of brand development.
Various types of Contests are tailored for finding domain name ideas, brand names, personal names or any other types of names. There is an option to create a Contest to post available domain names only.
Domain Name Search. A big part of NameStation is dedicated to finding available domains. Never a simple task, but there are a number of ways to produce name variations automatically that can save a lot of time.
In addition to generating random name ideas you can work your way towards finding niche keyword domains. Keywords or lists of words can be combined with over 140 preset wordlists in plural and singular forms, random dictionary words or relevant related words can be added .
The Conceptual Wordlists we’ve prepared 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.
The challenge we tried to tackle was anticipating and eliminating dead-end scenarios. When there are no results, you should always be able to elaborate and continue the domain search to ultimately find suitable alternatives.
Excellent available domain names can also be found in the hand-picked domain names catalogue.
In the core of all this is the fast bulk domain search engine that allows checking over 40 Top-Level-Domains.
Incentives. While there are many people who gladly help others without expecting to get anything in return, most could use a little extra motivation. For those spending time coming up with creative name ideas for you we award our users with Reputation Points, which are given according to the votes given to their name suggestions. Points are only given for submissions to Public Contests and for contributions to the Available Domains Catalogue.
Reaching certain levels unlocks benefits like access to additional features or free Premium subscriptions. There are also ways to get paid for good available domain name ideas.
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.
Trending Names. We’re monitoring the Web for buzzwords or new product names. There are potentially thousands of domain names needed that relate to words like App, 3D, local, social or brands like iPad or Android. For such names we’ve created lists of names to choose from, which you can extend by adding your own Wordlists.
Some other enhancements worth noting are:
NameStation is a website for finding name ideas and available domains. People can get name suggestions, feedback and ratings from their friends. Businesses can collaborate and hold naming contests to engage customers.
Every day new businesses are established, products are invented, artworks are created, discoveries are made. Countless new names are needed to distinguish concepts, objects and individuals from others. The name you choose will be part of their identity, therefore it’s important to take time, do some thinking and research and perhaps get some opinions.
NameStation makes it all a bit easier. You can describe your needs, do brainstorming and engage people to get name suggestions, ratings and comments. Businesses can create teams to work together towards choosing the perfect brand names.
In today’s connected world, having a memorable domain or screen name is vital for
brand’s identity, so in addition to collaboration and research, a big chunk of NameStation
is dedicated specifically to finding available domains.
Brandable names, dictionary domains, compound words can be created using various
linguistic, phonetic and semantic techniques. Hand-picked niche domains can be found in the community-powered catalogue.
Professional teams and agencies can collaborate, streamlining the process of selecting
strong brand names or choosing names for their clients. Domain industry professionals can
create custom wordlists to find undiscovered niche domains with high-value keywords. Naming Specialists can get listed in our directory and get leads for creative assignments.