Dictionary Words

Someone recently asked me if they could limit the results to “dictionary” words. According to Google, the Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use. When I first started working with big data I would have thought that was a lot. But now comparing that to the amount of data we have analyzed it’s nothing. We’ve got THOUSANDS of times that many data points in our big data today!

It's natural to want to start with the Dictionary, but if you think about it, there are 350 million domain names. How many of them are dictionary words? A fraction of 1 percent. If you limited yourself to dictionary words, looking for domain names, you’d never get anything. So while you might find a couple numbers in disconnect, those are the numbers that are obvious to everyone else too, and unfortunately you’re not going to get.

You don’t find many dictionary words as the name of large companies because they’re not brandable. They’re always going to be more expensive and ultimately less valuable. To me, dictionary words are exactly what you shouldn’t look for. It’s like saying I only want to look for the most obvious generic terms that everyone else has looked for, for decades.

A lot of people will start here, looking for the most generic terms for their industry, but that’s where the related terms are important. You’re never going to get those generic terms but they will have a lot of related terms, or a phase that contains it. Maybe one of those will be available or inspire you. Look for phrases, and more creative, fanciful names, NOT generic, unbrandable terms that you can’t trademark.