How would you name a military startup?

August 28, 2008 4:08 PM

How would you name an oddly positioned military startup?

I'm working on a startup with a friend and we're stuck on the naming process. We're planning on having this company be an umbrella-type corporation: some military stuff, some social web-apps, some energy stuff. (we've got overactive imaginations)

You know the term Think Tank? Well, if you didin't know what it meant and had to guess what it was using your imagination, that's what my company would be: a bunch of guys thinking of stuff.

I kinda like the motto "We're solving problems so you don't have to" for my own company... another great motto is "We're building a machine that will be proud of us" (for an AI company).


Thanks for the help!

posted by speek to work & money (23 comments total)

I don't mean to be unhelpful, but your list of things the company will be engaged in indicates that the company is not oddly positioned, it's just plain not positioned at all. In this light, you'd go with a Consolidated Widgets type name (cue Roget's).

Is there any thought to just having those be three separate companies without an umbrella?
posted by rhizome at 4:14 PM on August 28, 2008

Something-Something Simulations

Something-Something Solutions
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:20 PM on August 28, 2008

WWDSD (What Would Dr. Strangelove Do)?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:27 PM on August 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

Some people I've known have picked a company name just based on what internet domain names are available, or even what domain names have recently expired: you might get a name that someone paid a fancy marketing firm tons of money to develop and market test, but which went to waste when the company folded.
posted by XMLicious at 4:31 PM on August 28, 2008

Strategic Innovations
General Dynamics
American Consolidated Mental Innovation Laboratories (ACMIL for short)
posted by infinitewindow at 5:11 PM on August 28, 2008

with a hat tip to the awesome Middleman's organization:
"pugnantes malos, no hos pugnetis" fighting evil so you don't have to
posted by rmd1023 at 5:21 PM on August 28, 2008

Aperture Sci...oh.

But you damn sound like one of these types of companies. Just be careful when creating that death ray-time machine-turtle extinction machines.

I'm seconding the generic ones infinitewindow stated above. I mean, wouldn't that just be a great cover? A simple generic name with eccentricity abound. How about that: Eccentricity Abound.
posted by saxamo at 5:21 PM on August 28, 2008

We only do completely non-lethal things... unless someone chokes on something the size of a hamster ball... It just happens to be that the main market for two of our products is a military org.
posted by speek at 5:27 PM on August 28, 2008

Hamster balls don't kill people. People kill people.
posted by schwa at 5:39 PM on August 28, 2008

Maimster
Pal Liburton
(nonlethality preempted PeopleDyne and SlayPal)
posted by DB Cooper at 5:40 PM on August 28, 2008 [3 favorites]

Cognizorp
Ubiquinox
Prescientifics
posted by erpava at 5:43 PM on August 28, 2008

OmniMega
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:45 PM on August 28, 2008

Tyrell Corporation.
posted by doublesix at 5:48 PM on August 28, 2008

bayo.net (taken)
Mental Recoil
tankthink (taken)
Just Conclusions
combatiscope
paxcom (taken)
SharpMindCorp: On the cutting edge of thought
RearGuard: We've got your ass
Predax (taken)
digiprox
FieldThought: Fieldcraft for the mind.
posted by furtive at 6:11 PM on August 28, 2008

Overactive Imaginations, LLC
Think Armory, LLC
Idea Ammunitions, LLC

BTW.. how much of cut in your startup do we get if you pick one of these names? :P
posted by mhh5 at 6:25 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

BTW, General Dynamics is taken. My company works with them. Strangely enough, GD is a defense contractor with a ton of different products...
posted by Xoder at 8:36 PM on August 28, 2008

Pick a nice, violent, Greek god and name your company after him. Then get back to writing a real business plan. Once you've got the business plan down and solid, go back to the naming thing. Pick something that your customers will like, but won't be threatening to them.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:22 PM on August 28, 2008

^ Thanatodynamic Thought Solutions
posted by protorp at 2:39 AM on August 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Radix Malorum.
posted by atchafalaya at 7:56 AM on August 29, 2008

We've got a business plan, I'm just not really comfortable telling people outside of the company what it is right now.

We're about to incorporate in delaware, and it'll make our lives much easier if we just think of a name and stick to it.
posted by speek at 8:05 AM on August 29, 2008

Omni Consumer Products, or maybe BlueSun, both work...
posted by pupdog at 10:22 AM on August 29, 2008

Yoyodyne
posted by Meatbomb at 11:02 AM on August 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

I named my LLC after a dog. Then there's that computer guy who named his company after some sort of fruit...

What I'm getting at is, perhaps if your company does what it does well and gets known, it will establish an identity that will lend meaning to the name, rather than the other way around. So many companies' names have been seemingly random string of letters. It's what they do that gives it meaning.
posted by Robert Angelo at 6:26 PM on August 29, 2008