Checklist before choosing a name

Each check below takes minutes and can be run by anyone on the committee. The order matters: the cheap tests come first, because a name that fails one of them never needs the later ones.

Does the name work as a spoken thing

1. Say it and have somebody write it. One person reads the intended address aloud at normal speed, another writes it down without asking questions. Anything requiring a clarification has failed.
2. Check for the joins. Where one word ends and the next begins with the same letter, readers routinely type one letter instead of two, and the address goes nowhere.
3. Decide about hyphens once. A hyphen can rescue an unreadable join, but it is invisible in speech and has to be mentioned every time the address is given out.
4. Avoid digits. A spoken number can be typed as a figure or written out in letters, which means two versions of the address exist from the first day.
5. Read it back to front. Joined words occasionally form an unintended second reading, and it is better to find that in a meeting than on a printed banner.

Will it still fit in ten years

1. Leave out the year, the sponsor and the founder. All three change, and the address does not, so the name outlives whatever it referred to.
2. Name the group, not the current project. A foundation named after one restoration has to explain itself for the rest of its existence.
3. Be wary of initials. They are obvious inside the group, meaningless outside it, and shared with every similar organisation in the country.
4. Check the length against a shirt and a footer. Long names get abbreviated in practice, and the abbreviation then becomes the real address while the registered one gathers dust.

Is anybody else already using it

1. Search the national and regional trademark registers. Look for the exact words and obvious variants, in the classes that cover what the group actually does.
2. Search company and charity registers. An organisation already operating under the name in the same field is a reason to choose differently, whatever the domain register says.
3. Search the open web, plainly. Singular, plural and the most likely misspelling, looking for anyone active in the same sector or territory. The reasoning behind these checks is set out in trademarks and names.
4. Look at the same name in other extensions. An active site on another ending will be found by anyone looking for the group and will absorb some of its visitors.

Is the registration itself sound

1. Check availability at more than one moment. Availability shown in a search box is not a reservation, and the name should be registered promptly once it is agreed.
2. Choose the extension deliberately. A local membership often reads best on a country ending, while a cause or a membership body frequently suits .org, as set out in what .org means.
3. Decide whether a second registration is wanted. Registering an obvious variant is cheap insurance, and it also creates a second renewal date that somebody has to keep alive.
4. Register it in the name of the organisation. The registrant field should carry the group, not whoever had a card in the room, a point developed in who owns a domain.
5. Set the contact address to a mailbox more than one officer can open. Renewal notices and transfer confirmations both go there, and both matter.

Only then

1. Minute the decision. A single line recording the chosen name and that it is held for the organisation is the record that settles arguments years later.
2. Print nothing until the registration is confirmed. The order is register, verify the site loads, then order the shirts. Reversing it is the most expensive mistake in this entire subject.