To shortlist business names, run your long list through seven filters in order of cost: strip near-duplicates, apply say-and-spell, cut category collisions, check domains, screen for meaning problems, test on real people, then score the survivors. Cheap filters first means you never waste a domain lookup on a name that was already dead.
Most founders do this backwards. They fall for a name at idea forty, check the .com at midnight, find it gone, and spend the next week negotiating with themselves about hyphens. The fix isn't better taste — it's sequencing. Below is the screening process itself: seven numbered steps, each with what to do and how to confirm it actually worked before you move to the next one. If you haven't built a long list yet, start with the step-by-step naming guide and come back with forty candidates.
How long should the long list be before you start screening?
Around thirty to fifty candidates. Fewer than about twenty-five and the screening process just confirms the name you already liked — every filter you apply eliminates candidates, and a thin list runs out before the expensive filters get a chance to do anything useful. Much beyond fifty and step one becomes a chore you abandon halfway.
The list should also be varied. Thirty candidates that are all compound words built from the same two roots is really three candidates wearing thirty hats. Mix descriptive, suggestive, compound, and invented forms so the survivors represent genuinely different bets.
What order should the filters run in?
Cheapest first, in this order: duplicates, sound, competitors, domains, meaning, real people, scorecard. Each step costs more time per candidate than the one before it. A say-and-spell pass takes about ten seconds per name; asking four strangers to pronounce a name takes a day of calendar time. Running them in the wrong order is how a two-hour job becomes a two-week job.
The seven-step shortlisting process
1. Strip the near-duplicates. Read the list and group candidates that are variations of the same idea — Nectarly, Nectorly, and Nectara are one bet, not three. Keep the strongest spelling from each group and delete the rest.
Verify it worked: no two remaining names share a root word or differ only by a suffix. If you can't state in one sentence why two survivors are different bets, one of them shouldn't be there. Expect to lose roughly a quarter of the list here.
2. Run say-and-spell. Read each remaining name aloud once, then write it from memory without looking. Mark a fail if you hesitate on the pronunciation or produce a different spelling than the original.
Verify it worked: every survivor passed both halves — you said it cleanly and spelled it correctly from sound alone. This is the highest-yield filter in the process and it costs seconds. The brand name scorecard explains why sound and spelling carry the most weight and what the specific failure patterns look like.
3. Cut the category collisions. Search each survivor alongside your category keyword — "candidate name" plus "invoicing software", or plus "dental clinic". You're looking for an existing business in your space with the same or a near-identical name.
Verify it worked: for each survivor you can name the closest existing business you found and say why it isn't a collision — different industry, different market, clearly different word. If your best answer is "I didn't find anything," search again with a second spelling and a second phrasing. Note that this is a signal check, not a legal one: a clean search result is not trademark clearance, and clearance rules differ by country. Search the official registries for your markets and have a trademark attorney run a proper clearance before you commit money to a name.
4. Check the domains — all of them, in one sitting. Now, and not before, look up the exact-match .com for every remaining candidate. Do the whole batch in one pass so you're comparing results against each other rather than falling for whichever name you happened to check first. Record the result state, not just yes/no: available, available-at-premium-price, parked, or in active use.
Verify it worked: every survivor has a recorded result and a timestamp. Availability is a point-in-time lookup, not a reservation — a name that's free this morning can be registered this afternoon. Our domain availability guide covers how the lookups work and how to read premium and parked results correctly.
5. Screen for meaning problems. For each survivor, check what the word or coined form means in the other languages your audience speaks, and what it looks like as a single lowercase string in a URL. Word joins produce unfortunate readings more often than founders expect.
Verify it worked: you've read every candidate as lowercasenospaces and found no accidental second word, and you've checked meanings in at least the languages of your first two target markets.
6. Test on real people. Take the four to eight names still standing to people in your actual target audience — not co-founders, not friends who know the pitch. Say each name once, wait thirty seconds, then ask them to repeat it and spell it.
Verify it worked: you have responses from at least four people who had no prior exposure to the names, and you've written down every "how do you spell that?" as a fail. A name that needs spelling out in a quiet room will need it in a noisy one for the life of the business.
7. Score the survivors and pick two. Run the three to five finalists through a weighted scorecard — sound, spelling, distinctiveness, domain reality, room to grow — and total the scores.
Verify it worked: you have a numeric winner and a runner-up, and the gap between them is something you can explain to someone who wasn't in the room. Keep the runner-up: if the winner's domain disappears or the trademark search turns up a problem, you don't want to restart the whole process.
What should you do with the names you cut?
Keep them in a file rather than deleting them. Names rejected for domain reasons are worth revisiting — registrations lapse, and a name you eliminated in step four may free up later. Names rejected on sound or meaning are genuinely dead; don't let them back in when the process gets tiring at step six.
Also record why each name was cut. Three months later, someone will suggest a name you already rejected, and a one-line reason ends that conversation in seconds.
FAQ
How many finalists should come out of a shortlist?
Two — a winner and a backup. Ending with one is fragile, because a single trademark problem or a registration that happens overnight sends you back to the start. Ending with four means you haven't finished deciding; you've just moved the argument later.
Should I check the domain before or after testing names on people?
Before. Domain checks are fast and eliminate candidates in bulk; people-testing costs calendar time and social capital you can only spend once. Test the names that could actually be registered.
What if every surviving name has a taken .com?
Your long list was too narrow, or too descriptive. Go back and generate more invented and compound forms, which are far easier to register. If a specific name is genuinely worth keeping, an alternate TLD keeps it intact at the cost of renewals and audience expectations — choosing a TLD covers what each ending signals and what it typically costs over time.
Can I skip steps if I'm in a hurry?
Skip steps five and six if you must, but never one through four. Duplicates, sound, competitors, and domains are the filters that prevent expensive mistakes, and together they take under an hour for a list of forty.
What comes after I pick the winner?
Register the domain the same day you decide, then claim the matching handles and set up email on the domain before you announce anything — the launch identity checklist walks through that first week.
Screen fast, then register faster
Shortlisting isn't about taste. It's about running the cheap filters before the expensive ones, and verifying each step so you don't carry a dead name into the next round. Forty candidates down to two, in an afternoon.
You can run every step by hand. Or describe your idea to Whelex and get ranked brandable candidates that already arrive screened for length and pronounceability, each with a live .com availability check attached. Generate business name ideas at whelex.com — then run your own trademark checks before you commit.
