My son and I are starting a Game Studio and need your help with the name.
Thank you!!
Which one most aptly describes you?
And do you really think random people on the internet are going to pick a name that youâll be satisfied with ten years from now?
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If theyâre anything like me, theyâll hate any name ten years from now - might as well let random internet people pick it. Iâve agonized over similar design choices (not names but website and logo designs etc.) for days and that probably was mostly a waste of time.
I think from a marketing perspective all those names are bad, because Iâve already forgotten all of them. Theyâre generic and forgettable. Something silly like hyper-charged-bread-makers is easier to remember because it sticks more out from the crowd ever so slightly.
Aside from domain-availability, search term collisions are also a thing to keep in mind. For that, the generic often used words are also bad. Even worse are words that are associated with thematically related but stronger brands, because theyâll show up first in search results. Ideally you want something that puts your page on place 1 of the search results when someone heard the name somewhere and googles it to find out what the deal is.
That said⌠historically the teams that start by worrying about how to call their game/studio instead of making games first, donât really need to worry about such thingsâŚ
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Dad & Son Games.
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None of the above, to be perfectly honest. They are all way too descriptive and uncharacteristic. A good name, like any decent bit of art, communicates a message whose impression is entirely abstractable from its practical representation. I would suggest aiming for something more evocative.
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You know, I rather like your kind of âmethodâ for picking a name. However, I donât recall seeing you give any that embody what youâre describing. Can you give an example or two?
TO be honest, I dislike all of them. The first one is kinda-sorta okayish, but the rest 3 sound pretentious.
Aside from what Billy4184 suggested, you could also simply try maximum number of [random adjective or verb][random noun] combinations and try the one you like the most.
You may end up with something like âHowling Squirrel Studiosâ though.
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Well a good example that I like is Ironbelly Studios. It has a few different connotations - it gives the impression of something tough and strong, maybe like an armored soldier, mech or tank, as well as something warm and comforting (referring to iron pot belly stoves, which it at least reminded me of), as well as a place where satisfying things are created (again referring to the stove). And it rolls off the tongue quite well.
Others that I think are good, that are maybe a bit more casual, are (just went over to Google Play for a bit): Pixelfactor, Fingersoft, Supercell, Fireproof Games etc.
I saw this recently and I think itâs interesting in that the same principles could be applied to game studio names:
https://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/10-tips-for-designing-logos-that-dont-suck/
With the point that good names perhaps can be tested by the range and strength of their connotations as well as the simplicity of their design.
As an aside, I donât really like my own âstudioâ name - VSXGames. Itâs not too bad - but there are way too many syllables, and itâs annoyingly easy to confuse with VFX. But at the same time I like the connotation of âvisual effectsâ and perhaps the slight reference to SpaceX, which Iâm a fan of.
I remember trying this and I didnât get very far. Maybe I was just having a bad day but the results sounded like fragments of a poem generated by a bad computer program.
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All four of the names in the poll are too generic. Think up a name that is specific to you and your son, a primary genre of interest, or to your primary skill set.
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Everyones comments above have merit and instead of reiterating what they have said i would like to say how nobody has mentioned (or maybe i missed it) is the fact that the name will also speak volumes about your company!!
A small company name can still invoke strong feelings! For instance the person or team behind the Appstore Game Turretz called there company â111%â and to me that invokes the feeling that they put 111% into there games!!
Whereas the company behind the game State of Decay called themselves UndeadLabs and i remember reading (many many years ago before State of Decay was even released) That They chose the name UndeadLabs because they wanted any gamer who ever heard of the company to instantly go âOh hey they are passionate about zombies/they make zombie gamesâ
Possibly a good way to look at how you choose your name! Good luck! All of this info also applies to me as ive been thinking of company names myself!
Edit Note: I was looking at names such as Noobology.inc or The Killer of Productivity.inc (both terrible names IMO but you gotta start somewhere)
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I donât understand the inclusion of âStudiosâ in a developer name unless they have⌠you know⌠more than one studio. I did it with one of my early teams too, and after we realised that it was a bit silly we changed it.
Plus, nobody cares about your âstudioâ. If they care enough about the stuff you make then they might care a little about your team, but they donât care about the room you work in.
I echo the above suggestions about finding something thatâs somehow meaningful to you and evocative of relevant impressions to your audience. If itâs your first dev team and itâs mostly for hobby stuff then it doesnât matter what other people think of your name. Pick something that excites or inspires you and roll with it.
If you end up trying to do significant commercial stuff and your name doesnât test well with your audience then itâs not even a big deal. Youâre free to change it right up until you start making stuff public. This year I changed the name of a team Iâm on after a year of development, and we only recently even started ideating for a logo. These things arenât set in stone.
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Something else⌠all of those names seem to be generic attempts to tell us how good you are.
The thing is, as a general rule everyone wants to convince people that theyâre amazing. It happens so often that we just ignore it, itâs meaningless to us. Doubly so because itâs usually wrong. 
If youâre not someone like Blizzard then the selling point of your game is not simply that itâs awesome. Itâs a harsh truth but one that probably anyone hanging out here has to accept - we arenât going to compete on outright quality because we donât have the extreme levels of combined budget, skill and people power that large studios have. What we do have is the ability to try stuff that they canât because we donât have to aim for such large audiences as them. So you want a name that gives some specific people an impression of why they you are of interest to them as individuals. And you donât want to tell them, you want to show them.
Rather than telling us that youâre good, try and give us an impression of whatâs unique about you. @Billy4184 nailed it a few posts back, I canât say it better than they did, so read that post again and follow itâs lead.
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Thank all of you for your replies! I started with a list of a little over 100 domain names that were available and it took about 3 weeks to find them. I finally narrowed down to 4 by asking people which names they liked the best.
Finding a name that is available, half way short and sound somewhat clear is not easy to do. My first name was twobirdsinthebush.com but my son hated it, lol. I thought that proud arts was good because making games is a form of arts and we are proud of what we are making. Also it is short and easy to spell. 2 major companies that come to mind that used the arts is EA(electronics Arts) and LucasArts.
I think at some point you have to pick and name and get started.
Yep. So if âProud Artsâ is what works for you, stop worrying about what others think and get started with that.
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UniComm Games (short for Unity Community⌠giving us credit for picking the name for you). 
@johnadaniels Just for fun⌠http://www.nameboy.com is always a fun one for finding domain names. You can enter words, allow hyphens, synonyms, whatever⌠and itâll generate a bunch of potential domain names for you and show you their availability.
For example:
atomicdaniels.com is available and kind of cool.
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I donât like any of them, but the first one I dislike the least.
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I think the game titles are more important than the studio name. This tip comes from a guy with the most generic game titles of them all 
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Though I would say your game has a title that very well explains what itâs about. I think titles that give no clue about the gameplay or genre, or even worse give the wrong clue, are much worse than being generic. E.g. âThe Sexy Brutaleâ might turn off a lot of people that would have enjoyed that kind of game.
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I need to get back to work on my Wilson the Whistlepig game.
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