Well, if you ask me “What’s in a name” I’d say “Plenty”, considering the time we spent pondering over various names for our service. There were a few naming guidelines that we all had agreed upon.
- The name shouldnt be too long - around 5-8 chars max.
- It should be easy to remember - well, shorter names are easy to remember, unless you name it something like themilliondollarhomepage.
- It should be easy to spell out and pronounce.
- Obviously it should not infringe upon someone’s copyright. Hint: dont call your startup Gogle or Googlee.
- The corresponding domain name should be available. This is a tough one, trust me.
- And most importantly, everyone in the team should agree to the name. No one should have any objections.
All the 3-5 letter domain names have already been taken (Dont I sound a tad like Charles H. Duell, the US Patent office commissioner, who in 1899 said “Everything that can be invented has been invented”). Almost all the good names that everyone liked, were not available when we did the domain name search.
We even went through the exercise of adding “india”, “indo”, “indi” or some geographic attribute of India as a suffix or prefix of the domain. Coastlines, names of mountains, vernacular slangs, h4×0r speak, tea, coffee, party etc. We tried every combination. After going through 100+ names, we finally settled on Burrp!
Luckily, we all liked the name and it mostly conformed to our guidelines and the best part was the domain availability. As a team we could visualize it becoming a solid brand and a subculture being built around it. We booked the domain on the night of Diwali.