Naming an AI Project That People Remember
The AI landscape is crowded. There are thousands of models, tools, startups, and research projects competing for attention, and the name is the first thing that separates the memorable from the forgettable. GPT, DALL-E, LLaMA — these names stick because they were chosen with intent, not generated by committee.
Whether you're naming a side project, a research model, or the next big AI startup, the name sets expectations before anyone reads a single line of documentation.
What Works in AI Naming
Look at the names that dominate the AI space and patterns emerge fast:
- Mythological and classical references: Titan, Atlas, Gemini, Claude, Athena. These borrow gravitas from history and mythology. They suggest intelligence, power, and timelessness without being on the nose.
- Clever acronyms: BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), DALL-E (a blend of Dalí and WALL-E). The acronym-that-spells-something approach is a research tradition — but the good ones feel intentional, not forced.
- Animal names: LLaMA, Falcon, Chinchilla, Orca. There's a trend in ML research of using animal names, especially for large language models. It's memorable, searchable, and mascot-ready.
- Single evocative words: Flux, Torch, Spark, Bloom. Short, punchy, and they work equally well in a terminal command and a keynote presentation.
Naming by Project Type
Different AI projects have different naming needs:
Consumer-facing AI assistants need names that feel approachable. People are going to talk to this thing — or at least talk about it. Siri, Alexa, and Claude all feel like names you could say to a friend: "I asked Claude about it." Compare that to "I asked Anthropic's Large Language Model about it." The personification matters.
Research models can afford to be more technical or abstract. Your audience is researchers and engineers who appreciate a clever acronym or a meaningful reference. BERT and GPT didn't need to be consumer-friendly — they needed to be cited in papers and discussed at conferences.
Open source tools need to work in a terminal. Lowercase, no spaces, easy to type. Think about the pip install or npm install command. "Polars" works. "Advanced Data Processing Framework" doesn't. The best OSS names are also easy to search for — unique enough that Google returns your project, not a dictionary entry.
AI startups need brand-ready names. Domain availability, trademark clearance, and marketing potential all matter. The name should look good on a landing page, sound good in a pitch, and be memorable enough that investors remember it the next day. Our startup name generator covers the broader business naming angle if you need it.
Common AI Naming Mistakes
The AI space has its own set of naming clichés that mark you as unimaginative:
- The "AI" suffix: Slapping "AI" on the end of a generic word (SmartAI, BrainAI, ThinkAI) is the AI equivalent of adding "ly" to make an app name in 2015. It tells people nothing and sounds like every other project.
- The "Neural" prefix: NeuralThis, NeuralThat. Unless your project is specifically about neural architecture innovation, this prefix is overused to the point of meaninglessness.
- Overly literal names: "Text Generator Pro" or "Image Classifier 3000" describe what the thing does but give it zero personality. Functions change; good names endure.
- Existing project collisions: Before falling in love with a name, search PyPI, npm, GitHub, and Product Hunt. The AI space moves fast and names get claimed quickly.
- Unpronounceable acronyms: XGBTRF or MLPQRS might technically stand for something, but if nobody can say it in conversation, it won't spread.
The Technical Naming Checklist
Beyond creativity, AI project names need to pass some practical tests:
- Package registry availability: Check PyPI, npm, crates.io — wherever your project will live. A great name that's already taken on your primary registry is a dead end.
- Domain availability: Even for open source projects, having projectname.dev or projectname.ai helps immensely with discoverability.
- GitHub availability: The repo name matters. github.com/org/coolname beats github.com/org/coolname-framework-v2.
- Searchability: Google the name in quotes. If the first page is already full of other results, your project will struggle to rank.
- International pronunciation: AI is global. A name that works in English but is offensive or unpronounceable in other major languages is a liability.
Using Our AI Project Name Generator
Select your project type (assistant, model, startup, research, open source, or internal tool), set the tone, and choose a word count. The generator creates names that fit the conventions of your specific AI niche.
Try generating across different project types — sometimes a name meant for a research model turns out to be perfect for a product, or vice versa. The best AI project names cross boundaries. For the broader tech branding picture, our brand name generator covers general naming strategy.
