You know what’s the worst? Coming up with feature names or blog/post titles. IT’S THE WORST.
If anybody says that coming up with names for features or blogs is easy, they are fucking lying. Names are never easy.
It never fails to leave me like George Michaels.
(Actual depiction of what happens when I try to brainstorm for feature names.)
The name has to be absolutely perfect, or I absolutely cannot commit to it. My heart knows there’s something better. That, in itself, is a major problem. Why? Well, it takes me ten zillion years (or what seems to be that amount) to find that perfect name. Oh god, just thinking about the pain I went through makes me say no thanks to going through it again.
But alas, that’s not possible. There will always be names to come up with it. Just not possible not to.
TEN STEPS YOU GO THROUGH TO FIND THAT PERFECT FEATURE/BLOG NAME
- STEP 1: Come up with a new feature idea or a blog idea, and need a new name for it.
- STEP 2: Try to think of names or words you like, but fail horribly.
- STEP 3: Start to panic, and try to talk yourself down.
- STEP 4: Wail and cry. Whine about how hard it is.
- STEP 5: Feel an intense pain in your head because you’re thinking too hard about it.
- STEP 6: Regret your decision to hunt for good names.
- STEP 7: Distract yourself with Tumblr or Twitter.
- STEP 8: Ask a friend for help, and suddenly, a name appears to you out of nowhere.
- STEP 9: Get incredibly indecisive because you’re still unsure if it’s the perfect name.
- STEP 10: Repeats step 2-9 all over again a couple of times until you commit to it.
These are the steps I usually go through to find that perfect name. Do you know how many times I wanted to curl up into a ball? Lots. I can’t handle the distress! It’s too much! It happened a lot when I was trying to come up with names for You’re Just My Type, Sincerely Cee, and Holy, Mother Cover! feature. If I don’t find the name, the world is basically doom. (An exaggeration? I don’t think so.)
WHAT HELPS ME FIND A GOOD NAME
- Brainstorming with a buddy.
A REALLY BIG HELP. Whenever I brainstorm, I ask friends for ideas. I do this a lot because I like getting input. Sometimes, words will spark an idea, and that idea will lead to a good name. Other times, the friend comes up with a crappy name that weirdly helps me cross ideas out, or they come up with a brilliant name that they graciously let me have. For instance, with Sincerely Cee: A Letter to Yours Truly, I remember Shelly helping me brainstorm. We bounced around some ideas, but most didn’t work. And out of the blue, we suddenly came up with that feature name. A fabulous joint effort of pain and frustration. Kind of worth it since I was satisfied with what we came up with.
I don’t think I would’ve come up with fucking awesome names if I didn’t have a buddy to bounce ideas with.
- Writing ideas down and letting it stew for a bit.
Having it written down helps in identifying what is the best. I did that a lot as a teenager. I would write down the ideas I had and stare at them until other ideas form. Sometimes, the name needed a few tweaks until I could deem them perfect, so I’d just put off finalizing it until I knew for sure that it was what I wanted.
- Finding words I like and playing with it. Or thinking of puns!
I usually start off thinking of words I like that would fit with the feature or blog idea. Or I think of words I can make a pun out of. You can never go wrong with puns if it’s executed nicely. They can be cute and awesome. (It makes me kind of sad that I didn’t make a name pun blog name, but it’s okay! I have a pun in my header image. ;D) I sometimes look for synonyms of words I like or I mix words around, seeing if they sound good.
- Looking at other feature names or blog titles for inspiration.
And I don’t mean a word for word copy of another blogger’s name. (That is plagiarism.) For example, perhaps I see a blog name or a feature name with a cute pun (like A Cup of Jo), and I think, “fuck, it would be awesome to have a pun in the name.” Then I try to figure out what kind of puns I can make that would fit with my blog or my feature idea. That’s the type of inspiration I’m talking about. Just seeing other names can spark an idea.
- Not thinking about it for a while.
The name will come to you, sooner or later. Don’t think about it. Distract yourself. It weirdly works. When you least expect it, the name will come charging at you and hits you in the face, leaving a deep imprint on the side of it.
Ugh names are SO FREAKING HARD! When coming up with new domain names I’ve started to use this site: http://www.namemesh.com/ You can type in keywords and it will spit out variations for you, while checking the availability of the domain names. It’s a great site if you kind of know what you want, but want something a little bit different. Like if you were to put in “book monkey” it would give you hundreds of different results swapping out “monkey” for other animals, swapping out “book” for “novel” or other related book terms. Examples for a “book monkey” search would be:
memoir monkey
book rhino
book mammal
book primate
item monkey
poem monkey
book leopard
book otter
fiction monkey
etc.
It’s a lot of fun to play around with. Sometimes I get stuck on that site for hours LOL.
UGH coming up with names is SO HARD. I feel your pain, Cee! Curling up in a ball is my favorite defense.
Puns are the best way to name your posts, though, I must admit! You’re Just My Type has to be the best, I think. It makes me smile. And Holy, Mother Cover! That one is also a 100% winner! Meh, I fail at name-making. I really tried with one of my features (Rosie’s Modern Life) but HAH I think I could do so much better. You’re just so right, Cee, THE DIFFICULTY!!!1!111!
Coming up with names for things are just the hardest thing ever! I recently created a new feature and I’ve been having so many second thoughts about the name, it’s a good thing I haven’t written any posts for it yet. I tend to dip into pop culture when coming up with titles for things that aren’t really planned. It could be a one word phrase, or part of a quote, which I think is a bit more fun!
I can agree with you NAMES ARE HARD! We’ve both cried back and forth with each other to come up with names and I was so happy to retire my “H,MC!” name to you as I knew you’d appreciate the effort it went into coming up with that shit! I always try to work with puns or something that reflects my personality with the feature, like I have a new one coming up called “It’s time for Tea” as a look back on my weekly goings-on and the names reflects my love for tea and also it’s stereotypically British!
YES THIS ALL OF IT.
(Hey George Michael!)
I think this is the exact reason it took me nearly a year to start my own feature; every single name and idea I came up with was the cheesiest thing ever and I just kept cringing. But it finally happened just like you said in your last point – when I wasn’t thinking about it! All of sudden: BOOM. Feature :D
Names are so hard to come up with! (I have to say, I rather like all of the names to your features though!) It’s part of the reason why I hold off on making so many posts because goshdarnit, I just can’t find the right name! Most of the time, I give up with it and just scratch together random words and call it done. Sigh. I wish there was a generator that would magically generate me quirky, fun and unique titles. That would be such a big help!
“Other times, the friend comes up with a crappy name that weirdly helps me cross ideas out”
LOL. That is all.
I am SO bad with coming up with names. My blog name would probably be something totally different if I had put any thought into it at all…. but I didn’t :( I just did it on a whim and now I’m stuck with it. Not to say I don’t like it, I just think I probably could have thought (and thought) about it a little harder and came up with something perfect (or not). Anyhow when I come up with feature names they always suck. I had this one idea for a feature and literally could not come up with ONE thing. I called it the most generic and boring thing ever…. which I’m not going to post on here as to embarrass myself LOL. Basically I am not as creative as I apparently thought I was!!
Yes, this is so hard! It took me forever to come up with my current blog name. I actually had three different ones before I finally settled on Neon Yeti Reads – which is just my favorite color and animal…
I feel this so hard! But I’m also terrible at coming up with features in general soo ;) On the rare occasion that I come up with them, though, I feel like such a cliche!
Ugh it’s so difficult! Most of my feature names are kind of rubbish, but I just couldn’t think of anything better – and you know when you have a new feature or post you want to share, and you just want to get it out there!
My favourite recent one was Prose & Pixels, which is my video games/book feature. It took me a while to think that one up (I like alliteration :P).
It’s so hard! You have the steps down perfectly. I agree with you that brainstorming with a buddy and stewing about it for a while are two great ways to help get your creative juices flowing! Sometimes my brainstorming and lists get out of control tho. lol
Names are HARD, but sometimes I’m just lucky. My blog name popped up in my head out of nowhere and I’m still in love with it. I guess my best name so far is ‘Let is go’ from Frozen for my DNF/short review post. I let go of the fact that I don’t have to review every single book or I don’t have to finish them all.
And sometimes I’m too lazy and I want to post my feature no matter what, so name it for what it is. Like Fairytale news :p
NAMES. WHY DO NAMES EVEN EXIST, BUT TO OFFER US SUFFERING AND HARDSHIP?
I think puns are the way to go when coming up with feature names, but like, I am the least punny person in the world. The best I came up with was Civil War because hurr hurr UK vs US. But it’s still lame, haha!