Naming a website

[Chester Drawers]

Right chaps, thinking caps on please, I need some help.

I'm thinking of starting a small business involved in providing training for marine insurance (don't laugh, it's not as boring as it sounds).

What I need is ideas for a snappy webpage / company name.
It should incorporate the ideas of excellence, professionalism, marine insurance and reinsurance.

Something like promarine but unfortunately that one's gone.

So, anyone have any great ideas?

Cheers!

[motorheadmadness]

supreme-marine, keen-marine? there the only two which spring imediately to mind. ill get back to you if i have any more.

[selwonk]

Might be worth having a play with this:

http://www.nameboy.com/

[Andrew[MG]]

Are you expecting most of the work to come from online sources? If so then this really affects how you should be choosing the name....

[selwonk]

Andrew[MG] said:

Are you expecting most of the work to come from online sources? If so then this really affects how you should be choosing the name....

That is very true. Some search engines look for a good, pertinent name as well as content

[Chester Drawers]

Andrew[MG] said:

Are you expecting most of the work to come from online sources? If so then this really affects how you should be choosing the name....

Actually probably not - I am expecting most of the work to come via networking usage - existing contacts and word of mouth etc. Nevertheless, the webpage will be an important part of the whole idea - somewhere that people can go to find out more about the business and what's on offer and also as a way of advertising the business - trying to get high up on a google hit list for example thus I'd like to the name to help in this area.

Cheers

[Aiten]

Damn, you stopped me lurking and made me register.
A useful tool that helps you search for domain names in real time. It really does save a lot of time.
http://instantdomainsearch.com/ 

As for the name, it needs two things
1: Something unqiue and personal to the company (Your surname is usually the best)
2: Something that relates to your area of business

In relation to domain names
1. A '.com' is always more preferable to '.co.uk' or any other variation.
2. The shorter the better
3. Double check to make sure the domain is acceptable (the famous example, Pen Island)
4. Hyphens, underscores, missing letters and numbers are bad.
5. Make sure there isn't another company with the same name that simply hasn't made a website - you'll want to be unique so people remember, and don't confuse the company.

Since I have no idea what your name is, a good example would be (that is available in .com form)
www.chestermaritime.com

Hopes that helps.

Edited by Aiten on Friday 6th June 15:08

Edited by Aiten on Friday 6th June 15:09

[Chester Drawers]

Thanks Aiten, some good tips there. I've been using networksolutions to check for various available names (I already have a few domains hosted there and the service is pretty good). Fully agree on shortness being usefull - there's some hopeless webnames out there : www.havealookatmywonderfulwebsite.com ;-) The Domains I already have are all .coms - I wouldn't bother with a .co.uk etc as the .com is not specialised to a particular country.

So far I haven't come up with much, found a few snappy titles but they're unfortunately not available - one is for sale though, I've asked how much the owner wants for it...wait and see.

Cheers!

PS ref your point 5 - checking for a company without a website - any ideas on where I might find that out?

Cheers again :-)

Edited by Chester Drawers on Saturday 7th June 06:17

[Aiten]

The holy grail of UK company names is here.
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/988a075209f7847f19f5a879720e402c/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo 

Google is often very good (search "Chester Maritime", and that should show up anything listed in Yellow pages and other similar directories, even if it hasn't got a site of its own. Other than that, check your Yellow Pages, and the online version.

Another good one I found a minute ago is (however I have no idea how complete it is)
http://www.duport.co.uk/entry/company-name.htm 

In fairness, the first link should suffice.
Glad I could help.

Edited by Aiten on Saturday 7th June 18:23

[Chester Drawers]

Aiten said:

The holy grail of UK company names is here.
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/988a075209f7847f19f5a879720e402c/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo 

Google is often very good (search "Chester Maritime", and that should show up anything listed in Yellow pages and other similar directories, even if it hasn't got a site of its own. Other than that, check your Yellow Pages, and the online version.

Another good one I found a minute ago is (however I have no idea how complete it is)
http://www.duport.co.uk/entry/company-name.htm 

In fairness, the first link should suffice.
Glad I could help.

Edited by Aiten on Saturday 7th June 18:23

Many thanks Aiten - couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the companies thing - cheers