Day 3 - Branding Strategy and Naming Study

I spent yesterday researching names for my thesis (working title: Boca Loca "Crazy Mouth", Boca Local), browsing through my design book collection (Los Logos, Dos Logos, GH, Japanese Graphics Now, etc.). I didn't want to proceed any further without first deciding on a name and buying the domain. I wanted a simple name, not too long, and not too direct. Successful Web 2.0 sites have names that reflect their products without being obvious: Yelp, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, Loopt.

A lot of the names I wanted are of course being hawked over by speculators in hope they can sell the name for a ridiculous amount of money. After several emails to owners of domain names like bocalocal.com, obento.com, bnto.com - I've come to the conclusion that buying parked domains can be expensive. My failed attempt at stating that I am a poor grad student, wanting the domain for my thesis and only can spend $100, only to receive an email telling me the domain will cost me $20,000 only discouraged me even more. Yes, you read it right, obento.com is selling for $20,000. Even if I were a millionaire, I wouldn't spend that much on a domain name. I prefer a ".com" since dot coms are pretty much the standard, equivalent to DJing on Technics 1200's turntables. Before popular bookmark sharing site "delicious" was bought out by mega corporation Yahoo!, the domain name was del.icio.us (.us extension). Obviously Yahoo! could afford delicious.com.

So, to sum it up, I wanted an easy name to remember, something short, something related to eating, fresh, something multicultural. Boca (mouth in Spanish), Bento or Obento (lunch box Moms in Japan pack for their kids), Menta (Minty in Spanish - represents a fresh feeling).

Here are some domains that I have narrowed it down to:

mybento.com (a sense of ownership. good or not good?)
obnto.com (not sure if this works. It mimics names like Flickr, Tumblr)
bentoz.com (plural for bentos except with a Z since bentos.com is taken)
ben.to (a Tongan website!)
bentoboca.com (bocabento.com is taken)
mentabento.com (fresh lunch box - a mix of spanish and japanese. how multicultural we are in the US of A)

Any feedback on which name is your favourite is greatly appreciated. Please vote for your favourite name: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H3RSL56

The photos below are some screen caps of different domains that are parked and also logos from various companies.

(download)