Hey,
I was looking for a second fun domain, and I know this is a hard subject, since nobody really likes giving away rare finds of unused, cheap, and yet cool domain names, so not asking for suggestions. I actually found a whole bunch of those against my own expectations last week, tbh, but I’m still looking for a ‘perfect one’. So, my question is: how do you go about looking for fun domain names? Is there anything that can help with getting something nice? And what are your expectations in getting one? (Short? Funny? Pronounceable?)
I did already try asking a LLM (ChatGPT) or three, but I actually came up with way better ones than those could generate, so they aren’t adding to the solution. I also tried those websites that ask you to enter a few words to put one together, but they were even worse, cause they just spit out .com addresses, while I like to integrate the TLD into the name (like for [already taken] example: “do.pe”). 😅
Or do I really have to depend on my own imagination alone? Cause the thing is that my imagination is known to usually spit out the best ideas when it’s just too late. 😅
Anyway, TL;DR: Any input that improves the finding of a good unique domain name would be welcome. 😜
Who says you can only get one? Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good; just get one of the fun ones you already came up with and in the future if you need a different one get that too. That’s been my approach, anyway.
Not a bad idea, I would do this, but the problem is that I want to use it for email and a Synapse Matrix server, which both are rather attached to their domain names. 😅 Changing to a new domain would mean starting over… 🤔
The low hanging fruit will already be scooped up. You have to get creative with emphasis on it being pronounceable first and brevity second. I feel the biggest mistake that gets made is waiting for the perfect name and overlooking a good one.
the thing is that my imagination is known to usually spit out the best ideas when it’s just too late.
The whole question is about 25 years late.
Domain names were cool then. Today nobody gives a http://da.mn/ anymore.
lmao, I see your point, but I was there 25 years ago too, and however much I tried to stop it, time just went on progressing getting me to this moment that I want a new one and no time machine yet to go back. 😅 By ‘too late’ I meant ‘after having just bought another now’. 😜
Also, since the Fediverse is starting to boom, domain names for instances did become kind of cool again… 😅
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.sucks_(registry)
I’m gonna leave this here, go wild. Do note that most of big tech already bought their .sucks domains.
I did come across this TLD already and at a minimum of $200/year (up to 350) it kinda disqualifies for the financially aware mediocre personal user. 😅
It would have had good options though…
Yeah… the company that runs the gTLD thinks they struck gold and charge a premium for it. I wanted to purchase cloud.sucks but at $16k a year… nah I’ll pass.
For my homelab, I used a constellation so I can name each of my server after a star in the constellation. It is on a generic domain extension.
If it is something long term, I’d generally opt for a more stable extension. I.e. vanilla .com/net/org; or cctld for an existing country that you have close ties with that’s not likely to go away anytime soon. It is extremely rare, but this way I’m not running the odd risk of the company behind those fun new extensions, or a country going away (see .yu, no pun intended).
I hadn’t considered the possible future discontinuation of the new commercial TLD’s actually… Thanks for bringing that up… Might influence my ‘taking a .com anyway’-side to take the lead… There’s something about .com’s that will always feel more legit…
Best ones I have are registered after either a random thought or a brainstorming session. For me pronounceable is a must (at least to some extent), short is strong second and funny is of course always nice, but not necessity. Including TLD is always nice, but unfortunately it’s rather difficult at least with the TLD’s I usually use.
I’ll say that you probably want .com. Domain names that integrate the TLD are cute, but they can be problematic. Not everyone will pick up on the fact that it’s supposed to be pronounced as one word. This leads into the fact that it can be hard to verbally convey this domain to other people. Very specific TLDs are also likely to have strict or unusual rules on their use that could get them revoked.
I acquired one already and I used .re, which is a French registrar available for any EU citizen and currently doesn’t even require verification (though might in the future, but I’m from the EU, so I can do that.) Not going to put the full url out here for display (for security reasons), but I can tell you it ends in …mo.re, which is very obviously part of the name, especially with what’s in front, so I think I got something in between that reaches both worlds: It’s an official country registrar (so won’t easily disappear), I am allowed to use it and it still is one word with the TLD… 🙂
I have jumped domain names 4 times in the last year. Because I find a “cool new one”
But I’ve found the perfect one I believe now.
Simply found it by typing something “cool” and looking what tlds are available for that word or phrase
Which is the obvious method not really worth mentioning, but still I do.
You could always use password cracking tools like John the Ripper or crunch to modify existing word lists into domain syntax. Or really just use bash to do a quick script. For example, if you had a list of preferred TLDs like .al then you could iterate through a word list using something like a positive look behind regex statement to build out matches. So, if you had a word like “lyrical” that would be transformed into “lyric.al”. Just a thought anyway.
var word = ‘lyrical’
var re = new RegExp(`(.+(?<=^.{${word.length-2}}))(.*)`);
var m = re.exec(word)
var domain = `${m[1]}.${m[2]}`
Domain is then “lyric.al”. That would be the basic jist of it. Run through a wordlist, pattern match it out into groups, concatenate the groups with the “.”. You could probably make the domain list and then do a check against it for TLDs of interest (like “.al”).
