You have a shortlist of three names you like. That is the dangerous moment, because liking a name tells you almost nothing about whether it will work.
A name has to survive contact with real people. Most do not, and the failure only shows up months later, when the logo is printed and the domain is bought. Run these five tests first. They take an afternoon, and they catch the names that would have cost you a rebrand.
Say it out loud, on a call. If you have to repeat it, spell it, or explain the joke, it fails. People will hear your name far more often than they read it, on podcasts, in conversation, in a voice note. A name that only works written down is a name that leaks listeners every time someone says it.
Spell it after hearing it once. Ask a friend to write down what they heard. If they write a different spelling, every future mention sends a few people to the wrong search result, or to someone else entirely. Easy to say is not the same as easy to spell.
Search it like a stranger would. Not just the exact name, the name plus the word for what you do. If the first page is full of something else, you will be fighting that association for years. A name with no competition in search is worth more than a clever name with a crowded first page.
Check the handles and the domain together, before you fall in love. This is the trap that gets most people: the .com is free, so they commit, and only then discover the handle is taken on the platform that matters most to them. Check them in the same pass, while you still have candidates to fall back on.
Ask someone who knows nothing about the project what it sounds like. If they guess a completely different business, your name is working against you. You do not need them to love it. You need them to land in the right neighborhood without an explanation.
A name that passes all five is rare, and that is the point. Kill the ones that fail early, while killing them is free.
That is the part of naming I built NamerGuide around. Describe what you are building and it shows you name candidates with domain and username availability checked together, with the date each check was made, so you can see what was actually verified and when. Run your shortlist through it before you commit, not after.
Check the name everywhere before you buy it anywhere. Free, no account needed: https://namerguide.com
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