Devising unique names for WordPress themes

One of the biggest “pain points” I have when starting work on a publicly released WordPress theme is coming up with a suitable name.

• It can’t conflict with any of the thousands of free themes on WordPress.org
• It can’t conflict with any of the thousands of paid themes on ThemeForest
• It can’t be the name of a well-known, trademarked business

Commonly used non-English words

For example, the working title of Cocina was initially “Kitchen.” The word “kitchen” in Spanish is “cocina.” Three WordPress themes already share the name “Kitchen” but none use “Cocina.”

Uncommonly used English words

The Arroyo theme was originally “River.” Since that name was already used, I found “arroyo” on the Wikipedia article for “river”:

“a steep-sided gully cut by running water in an arid or semiarid region”

Obscure person names

The Adonia theme was originally titled Amanda. I went to a baby name website and landed on Adonia.

Obscure location names

I usually browse through lists of Italian town names for theme name inspiration. Vivaro and Bari are both names of Italian towns. Owari was the name of a Japanese province.

Cliches to avoid

Right off the bat, avoid anything with “WP” or “Theme” in it. Make sure your theme names are unique, memorable, and ideally just one word long.