company name generator faq

22:31:19 (GMT) Mon 4 Feb 2002

What is this thing?
It's a program that generates random, often authentic-looking high-tech company names.
Click here to try it out now.

Are they names of real companies?
No, they are not names of real companies (although some may be, by chance).

How are the company names generated?
The program knows the names of about 120 real technology companies, which it keeps in a database. Based on a statistical analysis of the database, it generates 10 names at random that "look the same," in a certain sense.

That sounds vague. How does it really work?
The program builds a Markov model for company name generation based on trigraphs (sequences of three letters) that appear in its database of real names. It runs the model to obtain a company stem name. It then applies a little window dressing, such as appending 'Corporation', 'Group', or whatever, at random after that.

Some of the names don't look very realistic.
Yes. And that isn't a question.

Could you use a different database to generate drug names, or product names, or foreign words, etc?
Yes. All that is needed is a file of names that you consider representative of the names you're trying to generate. Send email to thane@best.com if you're interested in doing this kind of work.