Names are such a tricky thing... It can sometimes make or break the business.

I think that both Entrepreneur and Business 2.0 magazines had recent (past year or so) articles about business names... I would search their sites for them.

But my recollection was that the current preference is to have a name that describes the business... so that potential customers could easily determine what it was you offered.

If you went for an "intangible" name (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.. what did they mean when they first started?) it needs to be easy to spell (phonetically) and catchy.

If you went for a tangible name it needed to be simple enough for people to remember it and link it to what you did.

I'm not the best example... I'm using Marlin Creek as a business idea site. However, Marlin Creek can be perceived as a physical place (like a resort)... which was important to me to establish a future physical existence in the online world.

Also to be considered is how big of a geographic area do you want to cover? 3rd Coast Creations might work well if you are on the 3rd coast (Gulf of Mexico coast)... but would lose meaning to your NY customers.

Summary thoughts...
1. Intangible names rely upon marketing for people to tie the connection between the name and the business
2. Tangible names can easily describe your service but may come across as too generic
3. Physical references can imply stability and long term commitment


Marlin Creek - Idea Seeds
http://marlincreek.com