Project Name Generator

A good project name is a codename, not a description. The best ones in tech and finance share a few habits: they are one or two words, they are easy to say out loud and to type in a ticket, and they mean nothing specific about the work so the name never becomes wrong when the scope changes. Android desserts, Apple's big cats and Ubuntu's animals all work this way. So do the Project Bluebird and Project Granite labels that bankers put on M&A deals, where the whole point is that an outsider overhearing the name learns nothing.

The richest sources are well-worn for a reason: stars and constellations (Orion, Vega, Polaris), birds of prey (Kestrel, Osprey, Goshawk), minerals (Granite, Cobalt, Obsidian), weather (Monsoon, Zephyr), scientists and explorers (Kepler, Lovelace, Magellan), and calm two-word images such as Quiet Harbor or Long Meadow. Teams that name every release from one theme get a free naming system that scales; deal teams that pick a color or gemstone per target can keep several live transactions straight without confusion.

Before you commit, search the name inside your company wiki and issue tracker, check that it is not already a product or a trademark in your space, and say it in a sentence. Northstar, Keystone and Lighthouse survive that test; a clever pun usually does not.