How did you come up with your company name?

[MannDude]

Curious how everyone here came up with their company name. Some names seem obvious, as in they include the words, "host", "vps", "server", etc. Others, not so much. Since your company name is your brand identity, I'm curious why you chose the name you did and how you came up with it.

 

[Mun]

I beat manndude to a pulp until I found a name I liked.

 

[raindog308]

I beat manndude to a pulp until I found a name I liked.

I thought that's how you got your nick?

MannDude -> beating, pulping, rearranging, condensing -> Mun

 

[lv-matt]

I purchased mine of someone else who had already come up with it for $XXX.

 

[Mun]

I thought that's how you got your nick?

MannDude -> beating, pulping, rearranging, condensing -> Mun

Actually I got it because people couldn't pronounce the original name I got from pulping manndude so I shortened it for all the idiots in the world.

 

[datarealm]

We sat down with a notepad and filled pages with names.  Then went back and veto'd a bunch, and finally started a voting process.

Likewise for domain names.  We had originally started with 'serve.com' and a bunch of ideas based off a gas station motif with 'full.serve.com' for fully managed services, 'self.serve.com' for self managed services, etc.

 

[Xenfinity]

We started doing business in the web hosting industry to bring innovative new features to VPS hosting. Lots of Virtuozzo/OpenVZ hosts out there, probably because it's very cheap to maintain.

After working with Virtuozzo, KVM, Hyper-V, and Xen, I found that I really liked Xen for how realistically its virtual machines act like dedicated servers. Xen can even virtualize within a virtual machine.

To create a company name, I had someone else try to come up with a name, but he only made some variation of "Texan" (we're incorporated in Texas), like "ATXXEN", which reads "Austin Texen"

The only name I could come up with was "Xenfinity", which doesn't have any special meanings except being a portmanteau of "Xen" and "Infinity", and since I didn't like any other name candidates that popped up, "Xenfinity" stuck.

Nick

 

[raindog308]

But how did MannDude get his name?

I assume it was an iterative process...

"Mann...what?  Let me think...

MannLewd...meh...

MannShrewd...meh...

Mann 'Tude...too strident...

MannBrood...bugs me for some reason...

MannCrude...descriptive, but...

MannRude...maybe...

MannFood...sounds like a sports bar...

MannScrewed...oh God, the jokes...

MannPrude...what am I, a Puritan?  No.

MannBloodFeud...I like it, but too hillbilly...

MannRenewed...no, sounds like a spa...

MannSubdued...doesn't fit...

MannNude...NO."

 

[jarland]

I ran into catalysthost.org on GoDaddy auctions. Launched with it. Grabbed .net when it expired. Waited a year for .com to expire with fingers crossed.

Never understimate the power of getting drunk and trolling the domain auctions on GoDaddy

 

[MannDude]

But how did MannDude get his name?

I assume it was an iterative process...

"Mann...what?  Let me think...

MannLewd...meh...

MannShrewd...meh...

Mann 'Tude...too strident...

MannBrood...bugs me for some reason...

MannCrude...descriptive, but...

MannRude...maybe...

MannFood...sounds like a sports bar...

MannScrewed...oh God, the jokes...

MannPrude...what am I, a Puritan?  No.

MannBloodFeud...I like it, but too hillbilly...

MannRenewed...no, sounds like a spa...

MannSubdued...doesn't fit...

MannNude...NO."

Company name, not forum username.

But for reference, "I'm Curtis Mann, dude." ==> MannDude

Or sometimes I lie and tell people it's my real name and pronounced, "M-ahn Dew-day", which I think sounds better anyway.

 

[iWF-Jacob]

I won the original domain via a contest at DigitalPoint (I know, I know...) It sat for a couple years until we decided to launch!

 

[KuJoe]

Originally we were Backup Dragon, then I decided to buy securedragon.net for our WHMCS because I'm not a fan of subdomains, then we got the idea of offering services other than backups, then we registered the LLC using our "company" domain, then backups became such a small percentage of our services so we stuck with Secure Dragon, then we offered different brands with different domains, then we went back to just one website, and here we are.

 

[Coastercraze]

Queue line mist fan AKA Cedar Point.

 

[AMDbuilder]

A few hours of debating possible company names leading up to lunch.  The closer we got to lunch the more food related names were suggested.  I forget the exact reasoning we settled on our name, perhaps because our lunch arrived or the name wasn't already taken.  It could also be the fact none of us could say the name without smiling.

In either case we get to have some fun with the branding, and yes we still smile when saying the name.

 

[lbft]

I think a lot of the time the primary determining factor is finding an available domain, unfortunately.

I don't do hosting myself but it's usually the limiting factor when I'm trying to name a project.

 

[HostSailor]

Days of deep brainstorming, but then again now adays it's hard to find a name that isn't already taken.

 

[Nett]

Lots of Virtuozzo/OpenVZ hosts out there, probably because it's very cheap to maintain.

Virtuozzo is expensive FYI.

Back on topic: my website (PetaByet) is just an anagram of petabyte(1024TB), originally I bought the domain just for fun but later developed the site.

 

[cspacews]

Our Website name is CSpace well my first initial starts with C and we are reffering to Web/Internet Space so it become CSpace and Hostings its assumed

 

[dano]

I sleep on names -- I used to buy great names I would think about(impulse), and then I decided that I should sleep on the name and see if I like it in a day or two, and if I do for the project, it sticks.

 

[markjcc]

1 Minute of Brainstorming, I thought about the word Next.. Then removed the T came up with NexHost

BOOM!