Naming my company??

Hi all i would just like to ask some questions about naming my company.

I just wanted to know what you guys thought of the name <font size="6">ZoHrK</font> for

a company?

It originated from the text adventure game called Zork.

If you have any suggestions or thought please share.

I'd recommend going with something easy to pronounce and possibly something that sparks conversation. One of my companies is called Angry Mango and that always catches journalists interest.

Thanks for the advice. How do you come up with names for businesses?

I wager the dictionary would be a good starting point.

Just flip to random pages.

Try namefind - just one of many such sites. If namefind doesn't give you anything you like, Google "brand name generator".

What do you guys think about Tombstone Softworks

That definitely sounds better, if a bit generic. Something unique yet easily spellable/googleable is ideal.

thehen: Angry Mango seems a bit like a sidekick to Rovios Angry Birds-Series and the Mango-Update for WP7-devices... So it fitted the situation referring to the time Mush was released. Or maybe you just love fruits. :-)

Kobusvdwalt: Maybe you have something like a mascot or any other "thing" you really like. So you could use this as a name giver. A pet maybe? Or something your emotions are positive related to. Ok, Tombstone Softworks sounds ok on the one hand, but on the other it may have a bit of a negative taste. It also depends on the presentation of the company itself, so the corporate design should suit your teams attitude. Creating something like "Plants vs. Zombies" would be a good match, but don't release educational games under this brand.

what stage is you company at?

as someone who was involved in the creation and running of a company (my family's swimming pool company, not games related but some principals are the same) i know it can be hard trying to come up with a name that you'll be trading under for a long time. we spent a long time arguing and throwing ideas around, but we realised that until we went to register the company name it didn't really matter.

what i'm trying to say is, if your company is in the early stages, there are more important things to worry about. yes a good name is useful for a games company, you want something to be proud of that gamers and your developer peers can associate with the quality of your game.

once you have a product and are ready to go to market, then is a good time to pick a name, and by then you and your team (if you have one) will have a wealth of experiences making the game to draw upon for name ideas,

this is all assuming that you are in the early stages of making the company. either way i'd suggest you pick something meaningful to you, maybe an inside joke or an idea or phase that came about during the development.

For what it's worth, game companies with three syllables seem to be my favorites. A-tar-i, Nin-ten-do, T-H-Q, Pan-dem-ic... etc. Two syllable names are a bit iffier... Se-ga, En-ix, Ra-re, So-ny, E-A, etc.

What do they all have in common? Save for THQ and EA, they're all one-word names.

If I were you, I'd keep words ike "Studios", "Works", "Project", "Software", and "Experiment" out of the title. "Softworks" too... you're not Bethesda. Bethesda sued whats-his-puss for naming a game "Scrolls". You don't want that kinda heat. Can't quite say why, but I mean, what was the last TV show that had "Project" in the title that went beyond Season 2? It sounds like YOU dont' know where you're going with it... even if you have a very clear picture.

As an aside for the above: Adding "Games" to the end of anything would be neutral... neither postitive nor negative.

I'd also go against putting "Pixel", "Retro", or "Bit" in your title, as people will expect ONE type of game from you forever and ever... once you change it up, people will feel you've lost your way.

Action words sound good. Emotional words, about 75% as good, unless your games follow a film genre (Dramatic titles, horror titles, comedy titles, etc.) Food's okay if you're making silly games.

Some suggestions:

Splatter

Dynamism

Altered

Ignite (or igNight, a play on id Software)

Crash! (Though you'd better hope your games are stable!)

Collision Box

Debug

Forbidden Source (Instead of open source)

Dragon Drop (Drag and Drop!)

BBB Titles (Admit it! You don't make AAA games!)

and so on.

Dirigible Cat Productions

Heavyhead Studios

Spade To The Head Games

Armless Clown Studios

Not the best names, but they'd make for memorable logos!

Hey thanks for all the great feedback and suggestions. I sometimes wonder how company's like Google or Valve get their names cause they are really great names.

Apparently, Google's name is a misspelling of Googol, which means 1 followed by 100 zeros.

So yeah, Google is actually a typo :D

There's a random fact of the day!

Tchoo-Tchoo productions

Kabom studios

Yumm entertainment

What makes you think that they are great names ? Their reputations ... So the name should be last :)