I'm about to graduate and plan on doing a lot of freelance web work and would like to have a VPS to host everything on, as well as for my own projects and such. Plus I of course will allow other "random" customers and allow my projects to refer other pages to host. Anyway, I'm wondering what people think good names for hosts are as I'm really at a loss as to what to use.

Scribble lots of words (even one that don't have meanings, but you can pronounce) down and jumble them up then pick 'n' mix.

Be creative, find a dictionary and close your eyes and skim through it and point your finger at a word. You may come across one you like.

If you have a niche, find words related to the niche and form a word.

Well... You can make host names up from the type of server... I.E. xeon host, Intelhost, i686 host...

Or you can use your fav words... Sniper Host (Slogan could be 'Deadly accurate on prices')

Then you can just use things like kittyhost or valenshost.

You could virtully use anything. But it is best to make the name very easy to remember, not too hard to spell, describes what is to be expected. I.E. SFH Super Fast Hosts.

Your name should also be something who make the a internet user wanna visit your site , The name of the site say alot about Who you are - so take some time and what #2 stated

Choosing your company name is always a hard part of running a business :)

Make sure you put a lot of thought into it and don't make it a two-second decision as your name will be sticking with you for a long time ;)

Best of luck on your decision

Real Hosts. (see, we're very real)
"Keep it Real" is our slogan ;)

Hrmmm... Just so many directions to go. I also plan on having a web-development "sector" (which will be the main focus of the site) as well as stand-alone application dev. Should I try and use one name for all 3? Combine web-dev and hosting into one, and stand-alone dev another? Different name for all 3? Related names for all 3? It's all about branding, and I really don't know what the best route to take is. It might seem trivial, but I think it could have a huge impact on the dynamic of each company/brand - do I want to tie software dev into the same thing as web dev and hosting? Probably not I don't think, I don't want people to get confused, but should they be related names? Just as an example, say I wanted to call my hosting company SaluHost. Then, should I call my software dev SaluSoft? What about my web-dev? Seemingly trivial matters can make a huge difference in the long term I think, so I need to choose wisely to start...

Think of words that havea special meaning for you - could be song names - places - people - there are limitless possibilities.

If you are incorporating 3 business models into one, how about something referring to the number of main services? Ie. Triple Threat Solutions or Triplicate Solutions....just brainstorming, they're not meant to be winners :D

I went with a memorable name that did not exist before. Makes it easy to track on Google to :). Like Neoboffin said just write down whatever comes to your mind. You will figure a good one out eventually.

Cheers
Jeff

Scribble lots of words (even one that don't have meanings, but you can pronounce) down and jumble them up then pick 'n' mix.

Be creative, find a dictionary and close your eyes and skim through it and point your finger at a word. You may come across one you like.

If you have a niche, find words related to the niche and form a word.
I really like this suggestion, as it does allow you to come up with a unique name. There are some key things to remember though when choosing a name for your company.


Is it marketable?
Does it mean anything in another language?
Easily pronounced?
Easy to remember?
Will it be easy to type in the URL?
Does it look good on paper?
Does it match my target market?


Through my experiences, and opinion those are some of the most important questions to ask yourself when you're coming up with a brand name for your company. Failing to adhere to any one of those could cause you to struggle at developing your brand.

I'm about to graduate and plan on doing a lot of freelance web work and would like to have a VPS to host everything on, as well as for my own projects and such. Plus I of course will allow other "random" customers and allow my projects to refer other pages to host. Anyway, I'm wondering what people think good names for hosts are as I'm really at a loss as to what to use.

Don't feel rushed to choose a name, I've worked with businesses before that didn't pick a name until they were about to go public. Trying to sit down and force a name won't turn out well. Give it some time and you'll come across some inspiration for a name without even trying.

Well, I'm not rushing it, but I plan on buying my server in the next day or two and moving over my current sites this week, and have a hosting site ready to go live as soon as I have a name, so it's kind of a priority at this point. Plus I need to know what domain to register my VPS for and all that jazz, so I mean it's kind of a pressing issue now.

Is it marketable?
Does it mean anything in another language?
Easily pronounced?
Easy to remember?
Will it be easy to type in the URL?
Does it look good on paper?
Does it match my target market?


Through my experiences, and opinion those are some of the most important questions to ask yourself when you're coming up with a brand name for your company. Failing to adhere to any one of those could cause you to struggle at developing your brand.
Yes, that is excellent advice! :)

Your domain/brand is probably one of the most important aspects of your business, which most people get terribly wrong. It defines you for years to come, and if you get it wrong now, it'll bite you down the track.

Choosing the right name/domain/brand is just the first part. You then need to secure all the relevant property around your brand. Failure to complete this properly, will also come back and bite you down the track.

Don't feel rushed to choose a name . . . Give it some time and you'll come across some inspiration for a name without even trying.
That would be nice if that were so. In reality, choosing that perfect name/domain/brand is hard work, and can take weeks. Rarely does the perfect name drop into your lap when you're not expecting it. It could happen, but it would be rare indeed.

It's probably not the best idea to ask someone to post ideas for names cause i've done this before and all the good names people suggested were taken by others by the time i had a chance to read them :|

On a related note, just because it was mentioned earlier, which is more appealing: solutions, services, networks, what?

I'm just curious as to what people here think sounds best.

The old name of my company was Nabla Design, picker by a co-owner/partner.

The nabla is an upside down delta character, a notation of finding the gradient of functions in multivariable calculus.

It was a bad name--only one employee was a designer, and we really didn't do much design work.

And, I find this out after agreeing to the name, that Nabla sounds very similar to NAMBLA--the North American Man-Boy Love Assocation. I honestly never heard of this organization till clients started telling me about them...

I really don't know what to go with here, my current (old?) favorite is SaluHost - derived from the word Salubrious: "Conducive or favorable to health or well-being"

Short and simple, easy to remember. I suck at naming things :(

Try and invent a one word name, that has a tech sounding to it. The name should be easy to spell, and kind of rolls off the tongue like it's always been a word. I found great pleasure in coming up with a brand new word, and then branding that. There was this sense of exploration there, in that I was the very first person on Planet earth to use that word. That's kinda cool. :gthumb: