You want to make sure that you can use the name you’ve chosen in multiple ways - a registered name, a website, in Linked In, in Twitter, in Facebook, etc.
The starting point for this is, of course, a Google search.
A word of advice here. If you have ever done product naming, you know that you can spend months on the name, working through candidates, understanding and working toward name meaning, working through focus groups, understanding international translations, and so on.
Do not do this.
While the name is important, in most cases you are a one man band working in a particular location and language. For this exercise get something you like and are comfortable with. You will find that a lot of the obvious names are already taken. Don’t fret it - just move on to another idea.
Once it looks like you have something that passes the Google test, you need to see whether is works in various social media locations. Some of this will be already covered by the Google search but it is worthwhile to take it one step further.
Let’s say that you have decided that “FiveWhyz” is the name you like - we did:-) In most cases you can cover most of these in by direct log into various applications to test out your chosen name. In the United States, you will want to validate (at a minimum):
Domain name: FiveWhyz.com
Twitter username: @FiveWhyz
Linked-in username: FiveWhyz
Facebook username: FiveWhyz
There are also services that can help:
Check the Domain through NameMesh.com
Usernames (eg Twitter handle @FiveWhyz) through NameChk.com
If you are interested in more information about choosing domain names and how they work I found the Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Domain Name to be useful.
How long will the naming process take? A bit of brainstorming, a bit of discussion, some serious validation and it really should take more than 24 hours to settle on a name you like.
By Way of Context ... You are looking at a part of a series of blog posts. The series looks like:
And remember, I am not an accountant. I am not a lawyer. You will want to get help from these experts and should defer to their opinion in the event that what you read on this page differs from their opinion.