Show HN: UnikNik – A name generator for startups and brands
uniknik.com
uniknik.com
Long version: I hate naming projects. I know I'm not supposed to spend any time on it, but it's one of those classic distractions for the perfectionist in me. I would spend days trying to find the perfect name, but would always wind up settling for some crappy pun or garbled nonsense.
Squatters have claimed most recognizable names and AI-driven or business-oriented name generators seem to all spit out long strings of unpronounceable, forgettable garbage. I didn't think it should be so hard to find a name that's short, memorable, easily communicated in lots of languages, and yet still unique enough to find an available domain.
My business partner hated that I would agonize over this for every project, so she suggested I take a little time off and build a name generator that meets my criteria. This was a fun project for me, since I love languages, orthography and grammar.
I had a working tool in a day and we've been using it for inspiration ever since (refining it along the way).
As we started taking on more long-term work, though, this tool has been sitting in the corner largely unused. On my business partner's recommendation yesterday, I took a few hours to package it up as a website. It's not the prettiest thing out there, but hope it's as helpful to others as it has been for us.
Let me know what you think and good luck, everybody!
How we used it: During branding brainstorming sessions, we got in the habit of generating 50 or so names, out of which we'd find 1-2 strong candidates and 10-20 reworkable names (add a letter, remove a letter, etc). We'd use the resulting list of 10-20 names for our domain name and company name searches. By the end of the exercise, there were usually a couple of clear winners.
Full disclosure: The site has one occasional ad on it, to offset hosting costs.