How do you name a new endeavor without hitting gotchas?
I think over the past few years, I’ve helped clients, friends, family buy something like 40+ domain names for new services, orgs, non profits, startups.
I have kept a running list of Dos and Don’ts that goes from email to text to DMs and it’s something like this:
Avoid number 1: Top level domains that are not your country of operation. Seriously. Notion finally announced they’re leaving the “.so” subdomain for a .com, after perhaps a decade with it. Notion is not a Somalia-based company, so .com makes way more sense.
Everyone was rushing to buy .io, now it’s .ai. That’s a party trick that’s not worth it. Use .com, .org, or your country’s TLD (e.g. .mx in Mexico, .de in Germany). It’s not the end of the world to get this wrong (my very own Billiam is still on .co and I’m not Colombia based!) but it causes lots of snafus with website registrations, visibility, and even spam/email warmups.
Avoid number 2: Names with any sort of punctuation / strange choices. Even when we were at BazaarVoice and it went public, the PascalCasing caused all sorts of typos. One of my tax advisors has a ”!” In the middle of their name and they’re virtually impossible to filter for in my email. It’s added inertia that’s not worth it.
“Do” number 1: Buy your domain with Cloudflare. Hands down, they are still the easiest domain provider and make integrating with other services a breeze. (I am not being paid by cloudflare lol but hey maybe someday). Another way to say this is as an “avoid”: please avoid godaddy, domain com, etc.
“Do” number 2: Keep the name generic enough to incorporate your current & future service offering and not confuse AI agents. If you’re “Kevin Doran Website Experts, LLC”, and later want to pivot to social network graphics.
I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but all the (frankly questionable) agents that are now being thrown around banking, fraud, professional services systems will be very confused by your change and fight you on it. More inertia.
“Do” number 3: ask an AI agent to consider what your name sounds like to other languages in your target area. I had a service a while back called “Kev’s Kit” that I had abbreviated to “KK” in the logo. Later when I wanted Spanish speaking clients, that sounds like.. You can figure it out.
(ps, because it’s obligatory: “DiD yOU KnOW naming things is one of the hardest problems in computer science I bet you didn’t”)
(p.p.s. shameless plug: this summer, I want to rebuild your website in AI-ready custom code, then train you how to maintain with your chatbot of choice. DM me if interested!)
Written on a keyboard by Kevin Doran — Jul 3, 2026
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