Since I began thinking about starting a company, I knew I had to have a great domain name. But I had no idea how difficult this process would be. Not only should your domain name also be your company name, but it should be short, memorable, and easy to tell people about without having to spell. It’s not simply a matter of coming up with a great name, but coming up with a great name that is available.

Domain names are essentially web real estate, and the market becomes more and more crowded each day. Most good names are taken and finding one that is available seems to involve considerable creativity. These are two strategies I’ve been using to come up with new domain names: combining Latin roots to create new words, or making a list of names I like and combining syllables from different words to create a new word (check out dot-o-mator).

I’ve been using GoDaddy to check availability, but a friend also sent me a link for Instant Domain Search, which is a better search tool, because you never have to use the back button. So far I’ve had a couple decent ideas, but nothing I’m too excited about. The process is consuming. I’ll get out of bed in the middle of the night to write down an idea and get up in the morning to find that it’s taken. I hope inspiration strikes me soon….I’m in domain name hell.