Ah, the eternal struggle of coming up with the perfect name—few tasks start with such optimism only to immediately become a frenzy of frustration. Unfortunately, there’s no established formula for picking a catchy, impactful name. Despite that, it’s relatively easy to recognize a clever name when you see it.

Sometimes you just stumble into the perfect name. It’s catchy, cool, and perfectly representative of that shiny new project. Of course, you’re only a quick search away from realizing that you’re about the 200th person to realize what a great name it is. Other times, you may find that what seemed like an innocent name has a bit of history that you weren’t aware of and don’t want to be associated with.

Sadly, I’ve been struggling with all of the above lately on various projects (including this blog). Despite that, one of my simplest, least important projects has a fantastic name that took almost zero effort to come up with. While I want to dismiss that as pure luck, I think the truth is a bit more complicated.

To put it simply, the more I care about a project, the harder it is for me to give it a name. When I’m holding onto a project too tightly, I tend to be more concerned about making a mistake. Too often, it becomes a bottleneck that keeps me from doing what I set out to do: create something.

In my first post, the main goal was just to hit the publish button again—to find my voice and put it out into the world. That hurdle was cleared, and now it’s time to clear this one.

By 10 April 2021, I’ll come up with three names, including the name of this site. Hopefully I’ll come up with amazing names, but there’s a distinct possibility that won’t be the case.

Either way, I’ve got a deadline to hit.