So… what is one of the first things to do when you’ve decided to begin your own little company? After the necessary gathering of information about getting the company registered and other, well, boring stuff there is also the fun part of finding a good name. It wasn’t so much fun as I expected it to be, however.

First I just made a little list of names I liked. I didn’t want a name that was too long and I didn’t want my own name (because of the length and I believe it is not easily readible for non-Dutch speakers). I also wanted a name that would tell what kind of company it is, not just a fun name.

But when I entered the names that were on the list on a domain name registration site a problem arised.

I entered the first name.

…taken.

Too bad, I really liked it but I had like 10 more to go!

…taken

…taken

..taken

…All of the names on my list were already taken!

I made up more. But as it turned out, all of them were taken too.

This was becoming frustrating. It already took me almost two hours making up names. At that point I didn’t bother making another list but started entering names directly in the search bar of the domain registration site.

I tried a lot of other names. But they were all taken or not what I really wanted (even though some of them were really fun, like Pixels and Pepperoni  or GeoGraphics)

Out of frustration I entered names that were not even pronounceable, like, hey, does this search option even work anyway?

I started to make up more.

Since I love animals I started trying names with animals. I immediately had visions of fun and cute logos to go with an animal. But of course:

Design Dog.com Taken.

Pixel Panda.com Taken.

Pixel Penguin.com Taken.

I started trying the same names and adding ‘designs’ ‘graphics’ and ‘design’, even though I preferred a shorter name. But I was getting more desperate by the minute.

…hey! Pixel Giraffe design.com was free! Before registrating I googled the ‘Pixel Giraffe.com’ site, since I didn’t want the name if Pixel Giraffe.com also was a design company and preferably not a company at all. I entered some blog with a lot of pictures and a lot of German text. Cleary not a company.

Yes! This one is mine!

pixelgiraffedesign.com   TAKEN.  There.