Invite over about ten of your best friends and/or prospective customers for a wine tasting party at your house early in the evening and make sure you have a designated driver or two. After everyone has had a glass or two, and started to loosen up tell them you are looking for a name for your product or business and that you invited them over to help with the name discovery process.

I wonder what they do
Creative Commons License photo credit: mikecogh
You’d be surprised at how creative they become. The more they loosen up the better chance there is of something very good coming out of it. It also involves your potential customers and that is a really good strategy.

Get several names you like because the challenge will be to find a name that you can register but even more so to find one that is also available as a web site domain name. The moment you settle on something, do a search at Godaddy.com to see if the name is taken. If you are very lucky and it is available, buy it immediately. It will cost you approximately $10 and you’ll own it for at least a year.

After you’ve done that, you should read 10 Must Do’s When Choosing A Company Name and Startup Strategy: Picking a Name and Tagline for your Business then check this out Starting Your Own Business?: 10 Questions to Consider BEFORE You Invest a Dime