One of the biggest problems in setting up a website is choosing a name for it. There are several considerations:
- It must be unique, or not so close to another site name that it will be confused with it. If it is practically unique it will pop to the top of search listings.
- It must be easy to spell and pronounce. George Eastman called his photography business 'Kodak' because it means nothing in any language and is impossible to mispronounce. Jeff Bezos must have had the same idea with Amazon.
- The letters in the name must be as close to universal as possible. Most languages using Roman letters include A, K, N, V and Z.
- It must be flexible. This site started out mainly about project management today, but has expanded to cover other things. So a name with ‘project’ in it would be a mistake.
The hospital surroundings are a bit less tranquil these days, but it’s still there.
After some thought I came up with Zavanak. It is actually a slight corruption of the name of the hospital where I was born – Savernake Hospital outside Marlborough in southern England. Locals don’t say ‘Say-ver-nake’ – they say ‘savanak’, and with a bit of a Wiltshire accent that becomes Zavanak. There you have it!