Acronyms, backronyms, portmanteaus, and puns

Don’t forget recursive acronyms

Just wanted to chime in and say that there’s nothing I find more pathetically Bro than a meaningless syllable salad in lieu of any creative naming effort.

What’s the issue with anything having meaning? I feel like we’re missing some important context if that’s a real criterion.

Finding good project names is one of the hardest things. It depends on the project, sometimes its just in front of you with play on words that has some meaning. It could be some historical reason why you name the project, or something out of blue with metaphorical meaning.

I usually think of a few words and then lookup in thesaurus for words with similar meaning, in example for the random word “management”: www.wordhippo.com/what-is/…/management.html Its often fruitless, sometimes not. So its worth trying if you get stuck.

Seems you’re putting too much thought into this. If you really can’t come up with one just try a random noun genetrator a few times until you find one you like.

Places I’ve consulted at have typically gone through noun lists unconnected to the work. Noun lists like i) greek gods (project Perseus) ii) Roman gods (project Janus) iii) literally random nouns (project Rainbow) iv) precious stones (project Sapphire) and so on…

If it’s a hobby try shortening the task at hand to a single word title, like World Procedural Gen with Climates becomes Climaproc, if it’s something more commercial or something you wish to be seen more, use more memorable names like Hades or use simple to remember terms, and then search them up if they are a widely used name elsewhere

Even if the name is Terrible it generally grows on people, you could name a project Harold and it would only sound weird to you and no one else

Try using code names, let’s say, Kilmarnock, Magmell or Thuinn

• express the project in your language in max 5 words
• merge them e.g big long table index --> blotin, blotidex, bilotadex, big ol tadex
• search for “word for $expression” and peruse the results
• translate the expression into other languages then do the same as above
• find synonyms for the words in your expression
• build an expression that is the opposite of your project and just prefix it with a negative then repeat above
• find a pun from your expression
• pick your favorite animal (or pick random one) tack it onto the expression and repeat above
• take your own name and use initials then spell out the initial e.g John Wallace -> J.W -> Jay Dub
  • tack that onto the expression (or the expression it fits best) e.g Jay Dub Index, Jaydudex, Judex, Dubidex, Jadubin

Or if you want to be completely unoriginal like, take a wordlist, pick a random word from it --> tada! You have a name. (what follows ia rant). The list can be an entire dictionary, anime names, movie names, name of mythical gods from wherever in the world, etc.
Then come up with some bullshit explanation that sounds sophisticated for example you randomly picked.

For example, I went to randomword.com and got “xylary”: “of, like or pertaining to xylem.” No bloody idea why “xylem” is? Yeah, me neither.

noun Botany.

a compound tissue in vascular plants that helps provide support and that conducts water and nutrients upward from the roots, consisting of tracheids, vessels, parenchyma cells, and woody fibers.

Oho, great! It has nothing to do with a big long table index, but let’s make it so! “Xylary is a performant database index. Just like xylem are paramount to performance of plants, xylary is paramount to the performance of queries to your database.” Voilà. The meaning of xylary is botched, but who gives a fuck, it sounds COOL, starts with X, and probably unknown to the majority of the world. So now you can piss off people in the field by polluting searches with your project.

But at least you have a project name bro 😎

Anti Commercial-AI license

An esperanto word.

Call it Sha’moneMF

Recursive acronyms.

Example? Name an alcohol library project TIPC, which stands for TIPC Is Pretty Cool

1. What does my project do?
2. Can I express that in a concise way?
3. Can I make it cutesy and memorable? Maybe with a fun acronym or alliteration?

If I can’t come up with anything I like, this is one of the only few areas in my life where I am comfortable asking AI. I am also very bad at names. But you already did that step, so sorry that that is not too helpful!

Create a docker container without explicitly naming it. Job done.

I named Minutor (a Minecraft map viewer) by looking up the Latin word for miner.

Bazdu