Repository Name Generator

A repository name is typed far more often than it is read: in clone URLs, import paths, package.json, CI configs and a hundred terminal commands. That is why the conventions on GitHub are so consistent. Names are lowercase, words are separated by hyphens rather than spaces or underscores, and the whole thing is short enough to tab-complete. Beyond that there are really two schools. Descriptive names say what the code does (csv-wrangler, env-vault, url-shortener) and are the right choice for anything you want strangers to find. Codenames (okapi, sextant, spindrift, quiet-harbor) say nothing about the code and are the right choice for products, internal services and anything whose scope will change, because the name never goes stale.

This generator mixes both, plus the other species you see in a real account: alliterative tool names (patch-pilot, merge-mender), personal-project names (sourdough-timer, dog-walk-tracker), learning repos (rust-by-building, tcp-by-hand), awesome lists and starters, and the inevitable dotfiles and junk-drawer.

Before you create the repo, search the name on GitHub and on your package registry. A unique name saves you from the npm or PyPI collision you would otherwise hit on publish day, and it keeps your repo from sitting on page three behind an older project with the same name.