Three rules for naming projects
I’ve had a lot of fun naming projects silly names. In college, my later cofounder Tomas and I named our CS161 operating system “Superb Bird” after the epically named Bird of Paradise. Similarly, I named an iOS accelerometer security project “Axolotyl.” Later, working full-time at Airbnb, Noah Martin and I named a mobile push notification service “Pleiades” after the star cluster. To this day, I still need to Google the spelling of that one - many a ruby bug was created due to the brutal string of vowels in that name.
Superb Bird, Axolotl, and Pleiades are all intentionally annoying (but fun names). They’re hard to say and spell - even more so given I’m somewhat dyslexic.
Here’s my firm rules for what makes a good project or company name
It must be two hard syllables
You can say it in a loud room without needing to repeat yourself
You don’t need to clarify how to spell it
Why
You’ll be writing and saying this name a billion times if you’re lucky. Name it something straightforward. One syllable can be too indistinct, and three+ is a mouthful. Soft concenents become tongue twisters and lack punch.
If you’re lucky, you’ll pitch this name at bars, coffee shops, conferences, and a million other loud spaces. Don’t sign yourself up for a decade of repeating yourself.
We live in the internet age. Folks will be Googling and coding this name hundreds of thousands of times. Make their lives easy.
Failing examples
Axolotl → four difficult-to-say syllables with tough spelling
Grindr → Someone new would need to clarify the spelling
Ikea → Famouly needed to run a marketing campaign to teach customers pronunciation
Andreson Horowitz → So may syllables, they assumed the shorter A16Z
Airbnb → So many publications and users still capitalize this one wrong
GitHub → Close, but the capitalization makes the correct spelling hard here
Great examples:
Facebook, Meta
Sony
Nike
Apple, Macbook, iPhone
Uber
Twitter
Graphite (we picked it in part because it passed the three rules)