Tools for finding domain names

Question

I've built out a pet project of mine, and am now looking for a good domain name for it. Arbitrarily doing whois lookups on ideas that pop into my head seems inefficient.

What tools do you use when searching for a good domain name?

Some ideas to get the wheels greased :

given a few letters does prefix/suffix/infix searches for available domains
suggests other words from a thesaurus
shows you short available domains

And of course, another requirement is that the tool isn't shady and quickly registers the domain name while it searches for you.

I'm not going to downvote because it's not a bad question, but c'mon - you're after a cybersquatting tool, which opens quite a few legal issues these days. In Australia cybersquatting is quite illegal, don't know about other countries. — Mark Henderson, Jul 23 '09 at 04:12
I tend to agree with you Farseeker but we do need to remember that while it's illegal here in Oz it's not illegal in some other places. Besides, we're sysadmins, not lawyers. — John Gardeniers, Jul 23 '09 at 04:51
Very true. I believe I've seen the acronym SFANL or something, Server Fault Are Not Lawyers... — Mark Henderson, Jul 23 '09 at 05:50
Honestly, I don't want to cybersquat. I hate those people just as much as you do. I just want a good name for my pet project. Some searching turned up http://www.nameboy.com/ which isn't too bad. I'm just looking for similar things. — Paul Tarjan, Jul 23 '09 at 10:04

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 23 '09 at 03:10

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May not be a complete solution -- but, try Domize.com

answered Jul 23 '09 at 03:10

nik

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 23 '09 at 03:10

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I enjoy playing around with AjaxWhois. It doesn't fit your search criteria at all, and I don't know about the shadiness, but it's damned fun to use!

answered Jul 23 '09 at 03:10

Evan Anderson

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this is not bad. but domize is similar and does it better. fyi. :) – Eric Johnson Feb 07 '11 at 01:20

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 23 '09 at 03:16

In the interest of avoiding auto-parking of your queries, I recommend that you do a simple nslookup of www.name.tld and then go to your respected registrar when you're ready to purchase it and verify that it is free.

Can't help much in the way of tools, though. I usually look them up by hand, and if I'm looking for a prefix or substring, I'll whip up a little shell script to search the name space for me.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 23 '09 at 04:48

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Most registrar sites I've seen have that kind of functionality. Enter a name you're interested in and they pop up a whole bunch of alternatives. If you need more than that I'm inclined to agree with Farseeker's comment.

answered Jul 23 '09 at 04:48

John Gardeniers

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 24 '09 at 20:16

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Another good site for finding domain names is http://www.bustaname.com They allow you to combine pre- and post- fixes, creating word lists, and only show results that are still open.

answered Jul 24 '09 at 20:16

Fishwalker

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 24 '09 at 20:38

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I just script nslookups, then when I have a list of possibles I throw them into a registrar's form, like gandi.net.

answered Jul 24 '09 at 20:38

dlamblin

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You can submit up to 50 domains in one go on gandi.net – Eric Johnson Feb 07 '11 at 01:22
Yeah having a real variety of options in one click is great. Fifty should be enough for candidate names for a project/product. – dlamblin Aug 05 '11 at 07:32

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 23 '09 at 11:12

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I found mine after looking up synonyms for words associated with my project on http://thesaurus.reference.com/ and checking the domains on my registrar.

answered Jul 23 '09 at 11:12

Sam Hasler

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Tools for finding domain names

7 Answers7