In naming, there are two kinds of people: those who like it and those who don’t. It’s not that easy to come up with good names; the combinations you can come up with seem pretty limited. Naming conventions make it even harder by making certain names too obvious to be interesting or memorable.
Most commonly used in North American English, proper nouns (nouns ending in “a ” “an ” “he,” “she,” “it,” “they” and “the”) precede the noun they modify. In the English language this is known as hyphens, and while it doesn’t have a place in the way you would describe someone, in the naming conventions it almost always does. So, when people use “She’s a lovely girl,” “She’s a nice girl,” “He’s a fat guy,” “They’re a team,” “I’m the one who’s always ready to help,” “The dog barber’s right,” “The cat’s name is Sally,” and so on, they’re talking about specific names rather than generic nouns.
As an example, in naming objects, we’ve all either seen or been told that if you want something to stand for something else, you need to name it after something that defines it. For example, in a roomful of scientists, it’s extremely common to have” Scientist “as a first name,” mathematician “as a second name, and” chemist “as a third. These are three independent but dependent clauses that can be used in any situation to create a clear idea about what the object is meant to symbolize. A dependent conjunction is used when the three independent clauses all complement each other, thus creating a compound verb: “is science is a science, is mathematics is a science, and is a chemist’s a science.”
A naming convention is, basically, a rule about how objects are to be named. In naming monsters, for example, we use a very specific naming convention that is highly dependent upon the monster itself. Let’s say, for example, that we’re going to name a new type of monster. The subject of the verb in this example would be “monsters.” If we want our monster to have a certain attribute, such as speed, then we must indicate this attribute using the word “monsters” followed by an inflection that reflects the noun that matches the attribute.
For instance, if we’re going to make a list of small classes of monsters for a game, we’d have to use the verb “list” followed by one of the nouns (say “smallest class,” ” the largest class,” “most widely known class,” etc.). If we don’t do this, then people might not understand that the verb we’re using is “list” and therefore won’t be able to guess the class of the monster. And if there are multiple smaller classes, then it’s unlikely that people will be able to distinguish one from the other. Thus, we’d lose the ability to distinguish between things. This is why the “monster” has to be singular in order to be used as a noun.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean that you have to follow all of the rules definitions here. Indeed, many times you can lose points if you follow rules that don’t fit your naming scheme. But when you’re stuck, it can help to have a strict list of acceptable domain names (and a list of potential domain names) in order to keep your naming down to a minimum.
Baloydi Lloydi is the content manager of Asknoypi.