Finding a
good name can be a tricky and time consuming process. It is very
unlikely that any computer application could churn out a good name
for your enterprise, product or pop group. However, there is one
part of the naming process that can be programmed into
a software application: random selection. There is usually
some element of randomness either in finding the pool of candidate
words or in making the final combination. It is commonly known fact
that the "Grateful Dead" derived their name from a combination of
two words randomly selected from the dictionary. Either they were
amazingly lucky to have picked out a catchy combination after only a
few tries, or they spent a lot of time trying other random
combinations. (Or maybe it is now impossible to separate all of
the mental associations generated by this phrase: associations which
the band themselves created over time through the use of it.)
You have probably heard about the hypothetical scenario of a room
full of monkeys randomly hitting typewriter keys for an infinite
length of time. At some point in time along their endless journey
into infinity, these monkeys must type the complete works of
William Shakespeare. (It is a mathematical certainty). The moral of
the story in this context is that the more random combinations of
letters and words that you can come up with, the more likely you are
to stumble across something worthwhile. That's where computer
software comes in...
Naming with Cut 'n' Mix:
Finding a name for a new business or rock band usually involves a
process of randomly combining words. Cut 'n' Mix can automate this
process. Here is a quick example: Lets say you wanted to come up
with a name for a web site having to do with high tech or computing.
The first track is filled with some "high tech" words
off-the-top-of-your-head:
Next, enter
some complimentary words that might seem like logical
combinations:
Click a glue
button on one of the tracks and try several mixes. Here are some of
the better ones that popped up in this quick example:
intrascience intraville comville webhome techmart techzone
techvillage comstore logtechzone powertechmart datacomville
ripsuite siliconestore virtuallocation fazebyte visionsuite
bizbizcom programripsuite agente-viral artbizcom serviceweb
powertechmart compuerphaze faze1000 viralelectro
Then, how about adding some extra twists to the names that appear by
1.) opening a new track 2.) generating a random pool of words 3.)
fragmenting the words into 5-letter pieces 3.) applying glue in the
mix.
-example of newly added track 3; a randmom
FILL which has been fragmented:
In the course of several new permutations, these are
some of the words which were generated:
cyberonian inforizes podities e-debs laserlated querylamps
infoonian bloglogic powercomraved siliconesmartiness spacequery
phazemeta spacerizes bloglurch megabloglogic compodities bloginess
dataacked
Next Section: Emulate Shakespeare's
Brain with Cut'n'Mix
