How to name an app or startup: 5 steps, the patterns behind famous names, and AI-generated examples

Published 2026-09-24 · By SmartName

A person holding a smartphone with an app open, outdoors on a sunny day — Photo: Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Short answer

App and startup names come in five patterns: a real word repurposed (Slack, Notion, Stripe), a blend (Instacart, Spotify), a compound (Airbnb, Shopify), a coined word (Zoom's predecessor Saasbee was not one), and a founder's name (rare in software).
The suffix era is over: -ly, -ify, -io and -hub now read as 2012. A short real word with a twist reads as current.
Test the name three ways before the domain: as an App Store title (does it say what it does in 30 characters with a subtitle?), spoken aloud ("download Tock"), and as a search (is it a common word you will never rank for?).
Software is trademark class 9 and 42 at the USPTO. Search both, and search the App Store, before you register anything.

Naming software is different from naming a shop: there is no sign, no street, and the name has to work as an App Store listing, a domain, a spoken word in a meeting, and a verb people might one day use. This guide gives the five steps, the patterns behind famous app names, the trademark classes that apply, and names our AI generated for a freelancer time-tracking and invoicing app, with the reasoning for each.

Step 1. Say what the app does in one sentence a stranger would understand

"Start a timer with one tap; the invoice writes itself at the end of the month" is a concept with a name inside it: tap, clock, hours, bill, tab. "An AI-powered productivity platform for the modern workforce" has no nouns a name can hold onto.

Write the sentence with the verb the user performs. Most good app names come from that verb or its object.

Step 2. Pick a pattern before you brainstorm

Pattern	Examples	Works best for
Real word, repurposed	Slack, Notion, Stripe, Reckon, Stint, Tab	The current mainstream. Reads as confident; the trade-off is a crowded search result.
Blend of two words	Instacart, Spotify (spot + identify), Tapbill, Hourbill	Apps whose function is two ideas joined.
Compound of two real words	Airbnb (AirBed & Breakfast), Shopify, TapClock, Truehours	Apps that want the function in the name and still sound like a brand.
Craft or technical term	Escapement (the part of a clock that releases time in beats), Figma (from "figment")	Apps for a professional audience that will enjoy the reference.
Sound-word	Tock, Zoom, Ping	Consumer apps; short, verb-able, easy to say in any language.
Coined word	Asana (a Sanskrit word), Trello, Canva	Companies with a marketing budget; hardest to make memorable, easiest to trademark.

One pattern, ten names, then the next. Ten from one pattern can be compared; ten from ten cannot.

Step 3. Test it as a store title, a spoken word and a search

App Store title. The title is 30 characters, and users read it beside a subtitle. "Tock: hours & invoices" works; "Freelancer Time Tracker Pro" is a category, not a name.
Spoken. Say "download Tock" and "send it from Tapbill" in a meeting. If you have to spell it, the name will be spelled wrong in every referral.
Searched. Search the bare word. "Slack" got away with a common word because it launched with press. A two-person startup naming itself "Tab" will never rank for "tab". Consider a compound or a rarer word.

Step 4. Search the trademark classes, the store and the domain

USPTO classes 9 and 42. Downloadable software is class 9; software as a service is class 42. Search both for the exact name and phonetic variants.
The App Store and Google Play. Search the name as a title. Apple rejects titles that duplicate existing apps; users confuse anything close.
The domain and handles. For a startup the exact domain matters more than for a shop. If the .com is gone, consider a compound (gettock.com is a compromise, not a solution) or a different name.
State entity name. Last, and easiest: the LLC or corporation name in your state, which need not match the product name.

Step 5. Keep a name with a story you can tell in a pitch

"Why Escapement?" "It is the part of a clock that releases time in exact beats. That is what the app does with your hours." That sentence opens every pitch and every onboarding screen. Pick the candidate whose story fits in a tweet.

Where famous app and startup names came from

Name	Where it came from
Slack	Stewart Butterfield's team explained it as a backronym, "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge"; the real reason was that it was a short, real word with a relaxed meaning. Real word, repurposed.
Spotify	Co-founder Daniel Ek misheard a name Martin Lorentzon shouted across the room; they later explained it as "spot" + "identify". A blend, born by accident.
Airbnb	Short for AirBed & Breakfast, the original 2007 idea of renting air mattresses in the founders' San Francisco apartment. A compound, compressed.
Uber	From the German über, "above" or "super". Originally UberCab; the trade word was dropped in 2011.
Stripe	The founders, Patrick and John Collison, worked under the name /dev/payments and chose Stripe in 2011 as a short, clean word with no fixed meaning. Real word, repurposed.
Notion	A real word meaning an idea or a concept. Chosen for a tool meant to hold every kind of note.
Shopify	Tobias Lütke's snowboard shop, Snowdevil, became a platform; "shop" + "-ify" in 2006, when the suffix was still new.
Zoom	Eric Yuan's company was founded as Saasbee in 2011 and renamed Zoom in 2012: a sound-word suggesting speed and closeness.
Instacart	"Instant" + "cart". A blend that says the whole product.
Figma	From "figment", a thing imagined. Chosen by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace for a design tool.
Canva	A coined word suggesting "canvas", chosen for a design app aimed at non-designers.
Asana	The Sanskrit word for a yoga posture, chosen by Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein to suggest focus and balance.

Origins as reported by the companies and in standard references. Names belong to their owners and are shown only to illustrate how names are built.

The legal side: what an app or startup name has to satisfy in the US

Rules that touch the name

Trademark (classes 9 and 42)	Downloadable software is class 9; SaaS is class 42. Search both. Registration from $350 per class; startups typically file both.
App Store rules	Apple's App Store Review Guidelines reject names that duplicate or closely mimic existing apps and titles over 30 characters. Google Play has similar rules. A rejected title after launch is costly.
Entity name	The Delaware C-corp or the state LLC name does not have to match the product name and usually should not; keep the entity generic and the product name free to change.
Domain and handles	Not a legal rule, but the exact .com and a matching handle are expected of a software company. Check them before the trademark search, because they are the ones you cannot buy later.
Restricted words	"Bank", "Insurance", "Trust" and similar words trigger state and federal rules for financial apps. "Health" and "Medical" invite HIPAA scrutiny. Keep them out of the name unless you are that thing.

Store rules change; check the current App Store Review Guidelines and Google Play policies before launch.

Examples: names the AI generated for a freelancer time-tracking app

We ran a realistic brief through SmartName on the live system (Light plan, 10 names in 5 directions) and picked three. The brief: A mobile app that helps freelancers track hours and send invoices from their phone. Free for one client, subscription above that. Launching in the US, then the UK and Canada. Rules given: Plain English words · Either · avoid ly, ify, hub, io. Everything below is shown exactly as the system delivered it, including the etymology and the written case for each name.

Descriptive: time word lastEnglish

TapClock

One tap starts the clock

ETYMOLOGYA compound of two plain words. tap: Middle English tappen, to strike lightly; clock: Middle Dutch clocke, from Medieval Latin clocca, a bell.

TapClock means a clock started with a single tap, which describes the app's core promise: one touch begins the timer, and the month's invoice follows on its own. The distinctive action word leads and the trade word closes, matching the pattern seen across real time-and-billing names, where the trade word sits in the middle or at the end in most cases. Ending on Clock tells a freelancer what the product does before they open it, while the verb up front sets it apart from the tired Prime Time and Around the Clock phrasing that crowds the space. Both halves are one syllable with hard consonants, so the name is easy to say on a phone call or in a podcast mention without spelling it out. It reads cleanly as an app icon label, stays well clear of FreshBooks, Harvest and Toggl, and scales naturally from the free one-client tier to paid plans in the US, UK and Canada.

Unique: craft and horology termsEnglish from French

Escapement

Say it: eh-SKAPE-ment

Your hours released in exact beats

ETYMOLOGYescape: Old French eschaper, to get out of one's cape, to slip free; -ment: suffix naming a device; in horology, the mechanism releasing a mainspring's power in exact ticks

Escapement is the small mechanism inside a watch that lets stored energy out in precise, even beats, turning a wound spring into measured time. The metaphor comes straight from the watchmaker's bench: a freelancer's day is the stored energy, and the app is the part that releases it into countable, billable units, tick by tick, until the month closes and the invoice writes itself. It suits a product built around one tap to start a timer, where the value lies in steady, exact counting rather than flash. The word is real, old and quietly technical, which lends a trustworthy, crafted feel without leaning on overused clock phrases like prime time or around the clock. Nothing in it touches the banned sounds, and it sits far from existing billing brands. One practical note: said aloud on the phone it can be heard as escape-ment or misspelled with an x, so an app store listing and domain should use the exact spelling and ideally secure common typo variants.

Stylish: crisp single wordEnglish

Tock

The beat where work adds up

ETYMOLOGYtock: English imitative word, echoing the second beat of a clock; paired with tick since the 1800s in 'tick-tock', the full swing of a pendulum.

Tock is the second beat of a clock's tick-tock, the half that completes the swing. The twist of meaning casts it as the moment work adds up: the tick is starting the timer, the tock is the finished hour and the bill it earns. Choosing the lesser-used half gives the app a real English word that feels fresh, while still pointing gently at time without spelling out the trade. Local venue names tend to bury 'time' in the middle or end of four-word phrases, so a single clock sound stands apart without joining that pattern. As a search term, the exact spelling is short and distinct; pairing it with a descriptor such as 'time and invoicing' in store listings helps it surface cleanly. The hard k ending makes it crisp in speech and bold on a white screen, the kind of word that reads well as a small wordmark.

These names were generated for a test brief during development; they are not real businesses. Before using any name, search your state's business registry and the USPTO trademark database. More generated examples across other industries.

Three mistakes to avoid

-ly, -ify, -io, -hub — The suffixes that meant "startup" in 2012 now mean "template". A short real word with a twist reads as current; a suffix reads as a domain hack.
Dropping a vowel — Flickr and Tumblr got away with it because they were first. Every misspelled name since has spent its marketing budget teaching the spelling.
A common word you will never rank for — "Tab" is a fine name and an impossible search. Unless you launch with press, choose a word or compound that is rarer than the thing it means.

What it costs to get help with a name

A naming agency charges from $5,000 to well over $50,000 for a startup name, and for venture-backed companies that is common; a freelance namer $500–$3,000; a crowdsourced contest from about $300. SmartName runs the process above on a current AI model and delivers 10 to 40 names with the etymology and a written case for each, for $39 to $119, in minutes. The class 9/42 search and the App Store check in Step 4 remain yours.

Frequently asked questions

Should the app name say what it does?

It helps in the store and hurts as a brand. The compromise most apps use is a short brand name plus a descriptive subtitle: "Tock: hours & invoices". The name stays free to grow; the subtitle does the explaining.

Are made-up words better for trademarks?

Yes: a coined word is the easiest to register and the hardest to make memorable. A real word repurposed (Slack, Notion) is harder to register and easier to remember. Most successful consumer apps chose memorable.

What if the .com is taken?

For a software company that is a real problem, not a detail. Prefixes (get-, try-) are a compromise users forget. Consider a compound of your word (TapClock instead of Tock) or a different word.

Does SmartName check trademarks or app stores?

No. It generates names and the case for each, and points you to the USPTO and the store guidelines. Search classes 9 and 42 and the store before you decide.

An app name that works in the store and out loud.

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