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Been reading some tech/SV history, and got intrigued by the different naming trends through the years. It's really interesting that each "era" has their own naming trends.
so, a not super serious startup name trend
!
(names bleed into different eras, but I tried my best)
so, a not super serious startup name trend
!(names bleed into different eras, but I tried my best)
Prehistoric times aka before 1990s:
1. People's names: HP, Fairchild, McAfee
2. Literal names: IBM, Software Development Laboratories (now Oracle!), Intel (Integrated Electronics;"Moore Noyce" didn't sound good), AMD, AOL, Microsoft, SAP
3. Place names: Adobe, Cisco, Sun Micro
1. People's names: HP, Fairchild, McAfee
2. Literal names: IBM, Software Development Laboratories (now Oracle!), Intel (Integrated Electronics;"Moore Noyce" didn't sound good), AMD, AOL, Microsoft, SAP
3. Place names: Adobe, Cisco, Sun Micro
1990s saw a lot of weird names:
Yahoo!, Google, eBay, Netscape, Mozilla (Mosaic Killer), Paypal, Akamai
late 90s to late 2000s also saw a lot of two-word names that sorta described what they did:
Salesforce, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, AirBnb, Eventbrite, Netflix
Yahoo!, Google, eBay, Netscape, Mozilla (Mosaic Killer), Paypal, Akamai
late 90s to late 2000s also saw a lot of two-word names that sorta described what they did:
Salesforce, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, AirBnb, Eventbrite, Netflix
Also started seeing a genre of names I call "+/- 1 letter":
Lyft, Tumblr, Digg, Grindr, Flickr, Scribd
This overlaps the "short one word" trend that dominates the end of the 2000s through all of 2010s:
Uber, Stripe, Affirm, Chime, Plaid, Acorns, Toast, Square, Bolt, Circle
Lyft, Tumblr, Digg, Grindr, Flickr, Scribd
This overlaps the "short one word" trend that dominates the end of the 2000s through all of 2010s:
Uber, Stripe, Affirm, Chime, Plaid, Acorns, Toast, Square, Bolt, Circle
A sub-trend of the "short one word" name is the "sorta common first name" trend:
Albert, Tala, Oscar, Brigit, Lulu...
Another 2010s trend was adding "AI" to the name, and ideally snagging the ".ai" url with it (ty Anguilla):
http://Argo.ai , http://primer.ai ...
Albert, Tala, Oscar, Brigit, Lulu...
Another 2010s trend was adding "AI" to the name, and ideally snagging the ".ai" url with it (ty Anguilla):
http://Argo.ai , http://primer.ai ...
What's on for 2020? No clue ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
some speculations:
- co's will continue trying to do short names, but they will be a lot less common compared to Stripe or Square
- More 2 word names: e.g. Modern Treasury
- More made up names like the 90s, more names like "Brex"
some speculations:
- co's will continue trying to do short names, but they will be a lot less common compared to Stripe or Square
- More 2 word names: e.g. Modern Treasury
- More made up names like the 90s, more names like "Brex"
See a recent YC batch for the different kinds of names we will see:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/all-the-companies-from-y-combinators-w20-demo-day-part-ii-consumer-companies/
Rich Barton's advice on how to pick a name:
- high point Scrabble words
- more 'x's and 'z's, few syllables
- double letters or palindromes https://www.axios.com/how-to-name-your-startup-1513301341-9a088bab-dc55-4790-b48c-70b581b3cf7b.html
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/all-the-companies-from-y-combinators-w20-demo-day-part-ii-consumer-companies/
Rich Barton's advice on how to pick a name:
- high point Scrabble words
- more 'x's and 'z's, few syllables
- double letters or palindromes https://www.axios.com/how-to-name-your-startup-1513301341-9a088bab-dc55-4790-b48c-70b581b3cf7b.html
