I recently read this awesome article on coming up with product names. The article details how Lexicon, a boutique naming firm, comes up with product names.

The basic process used by Lexicon is something like this:

• A team learns about the product
• The team lists concepts they’d like to convey with the name
• A number of teams with no knowledge of the product are asked to come up with words/phrases that convey those messages

Not having knowledge of the product is the key. When you have an intimate knowledge of something its hard to come up with those unique names instead of just describing the product. This is why software engineers often come up with names like File Saver Pro or Dog Picture Uploader.

As a single developer working alone its really hard to detach yourself and find those words/phrases. Asking friends doesn’t really work either because they often have background knowledge or want to have more info.

That’s where Fancy Hands comes in. As an experiment I tried using Fancy Hands to rename Manos de Mono. I’m not going to rename it, but I just wanted to see how it would work.

I sent a number of requests to fancy hands like “Please list the first 15 things you think of when I say the word ‘fast’” or “Name 15 activities that are performed at highspeed”. I also asked things like “List ten fast animals”.

That first round of questions led to some pretty good names. In fact they even came up with tornado, which is the name of the project Manos was originally based on.

In the second round of questions I asked for things related to tornados. They came up with Marvel which I think is a pretty cool name.

You might not use any of the names that Fancy Hands comes up with but I think at the very least it’s a really cheap way to help get the creative juices flowing.