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Startups

Startups Are Still Making Weird Name Choices

If the latest seed-funded startups have their way, this is what your future will look like.

You鈥檒l find your mortgage through a company named , refill your contact lenses with , and get your cannabis news from . (Who is not to be confused with , the startup that handles your banking.)

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Later, you can use to pay the bar tab, cover fertility treatments with , and get your workers鈥� compensation through .

Afterward, rent your neighbor鈥檚 stuff with , manage your cloud services with and network your way to a better career with .

Notice any patterns here? Yes, first names, foods, and animals have been quite popular lately with founders choosing startup names.

Those are a few of the top naming trends 兔子先生传媒 News identified in our latest perusal of seed-stage startups. The project involved parsing through names of more than 1,000 startups that raised seed rounds of $200,000 and up in the past nine months.

This data crunch was an update (see our methodology section below) to a prior overview of the often bizarre naming trends that startups follow. At that time, we found top trends included putting AI into your name, using popular first names, and employing creative misspellings of common words.

Most of these things are still popular in startup naming, but some more than others. Adding AI at the end of a name, for instance, is still common, but seems to be waning some. Creative misspellings are still getting done, but less frequently.

Meanwhile, other naming styles are getting more fashionable. Below, we take a look at what鈥檚 hot now and what might be in vogue next.

First Names And Nerdy Names

The first name trend seems to be intensifying, diversifying, and creeping into more sectors. Last year, we started noticing a proliferation of chatbot startups using first names. More recently, the first name trend has pervaded insurance, cannabis, fintech .

First names that startups are using are getting nerdier and less common. Morty, for example, is commonly short for Mortimer, which peaked in popularity in 1880s. It was most recently on the list of most common baby names. Then there鈥檚 , a learning software developer with a name that also hit its peak in the late 1800s. Last year it .

This is a stark contrast with the chatbot crowd. They tended to go with popular monikers, like Ava, Aiden, and Riley, that rank high on the . Some of the more offbeat names, however, do tie into their sectors. Herb has been used as slang for cannabis. Morty, for instance, shares a first syllable with mortgage.

It鈥檚 also noteworthy that many startups go with single word names. This is a shift from the old school practice of combining a first name with another word, as in well-known brands like Trader Joe鈥檚 and Sam鈥檚 Club.

Food Names

One of the nice things about naming yourself after a food is that these are general purpose nouns that don鈥檛 seem to raise a lot of copyright issues.

Startups also like naming themselves after foods lately. Of course, this isn鈥檛 an entirely new phenomenon, and it has worked well before. Apple named itself after a fruit and later became the world鈥檚 most valuable technology company.

It should be noted that the food names we refer to here are for companies that, like Apple, have nothing to do with the food industry. Carrot Fertility, which raised $3.6 million in seed funding last fall, for example, offers insurance policies for employers to help cover costs of workers鈥� fertility treatments. is a data science startup. Parsley Health provides primary care. goes on.

One of the nice things about naming yourself after a food is that these are general purpose nouns that don鈥檛 seem to raise a lot of copyright issues. Vegetables and baked goods aren鈥檛 going to sue you for misappropriating their names.

Animal Names

Animal names are also good from a trademark perspective. Plus, with an animal name you can also create a cute logo featuring the creature.

Those may be some of the reasons why animal names are also with startups developing both consumer-facing and backend technologies. The formula is also pretty straightforward: pick an animal and then add another descriptive word.

Of course, for most of the animal-monikered startups, mascots have nothing to do with the underlying businesses. obviously doesn鈥檛 expect hippopotamuses to use its mortgage tool, and Purple Squirrel doesn鈥檛 cater to furry-tailed job seekers.

That said, we do worry about the animal kingdom theme getting a bit overused. For instance, Mortgage Hippo and were both funded in the past couple of years.

Other Mini-Trends We Saw And Liked

Another interesting trend is that many startups hopping on the fashionable name bandwagon are in the insurance sector. We鈥檝e seen a huge spike in insurance startup funding over the past couple years, with many upstarts looking to re-architect the industry to appeal to millennial consumers. They like Oscar, Lemonade, and The Zebra.

Much of this activity is being bankrolled by the largest insurance companies, most of which are a century old and tend to have dull names that sound like, well, insurance companies. So don鈥檛 be surprised if the trendy new insurer is actually part-owned by the old boring one your parents complained about.

Another mini-trend that we鈥檇 like to see expand is the use of startup names based on textures. In the past year, both and raised good-sized seed rounds.

It鈥檚 not too late to get in on this trend, either. An analysis of 兔子先生传媒 funding archives reveals that there are plenty of textures out there that that don鈥檛 have a funded startup associated with them, including spongy, slimy, gelatinous, puffy, gloppy, stringy, pasty, hairy, and fluffy, to name a few.

Methodology

We altered the methodology for this naming piece since the last one. Previously, we looked at startups based on founding date. This time, we looked based on closed seed rounds of $200,000 or more in the past year for companies founded in 2015 or later.

Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the 兔子先生传媒 Daily.

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