We Asked AI for 220 Startup Names. Only 1 Had an Available .com.

What we did

We asked an AI assistant for startup name ideas the way anyone would, then expanded the list to 220 names spanning the three styles these tools lean on: real-word brandables (Sage, Orbit, Helix), two-word compounds (CloudNest, DataForge, NetPulse), and invented coinages (Nexora, Vantix, Optura). We deliberately skewed roughly half the list toward coinages and compounds, because that is exactly where available .com domains are supposed to survive, so the test would be fair rather than stacked with obviously-taken dictionary words. Then we checked every name against the live .com registry using RDAP, the ICANN-mandated registration protocol, with a DNS lookup as a fallback, the same verification path our generator uses on every name. The full list and result are reproducible from a script we kept.

The result: 1 of 220

Of the 220 names, exactly 1 had an available .com. That is 0.5%. The other 219 were already registered, and 100% of the verdicts came straight from the registry via RDAP, not from softer DNS guesses. The single survivor was pravelo.com. The part that should stop you: even the half of the list we skewed toward invented coinages, the names with the best odds, came back almost entirely taken. The polished, brandable-sounding names an AI hands you are, in practice, names other people already own.

Why AI name lists are almost all taken

This is not bad luck, it is how AI naming works. An assistant generating names optimizes for one thing: names that sound good, short, smooth, pronounceable, vaguely meaningful. But those are the exact qualities that made a name desirable years ago, when there were still .coms to claim, so the best-sounding names were registered long ago, often by domain investors holding them for resale. On top of that, an AI in a normal chat cannot check live availability: it is producing text, not querying a registry, so it has no idea whether anything it suggests is free. And because every AI gravitates to the same handful of nice patterns, its suggestions collide with the more than 160 million .com domains already registered. The better a name sounds, the more likely it is already gone.

The names that do survive

Availability has not vanished, it has just moved. It lives in unique strings that no one else generated: invented coinages, fused compounds, and near-words (a real word with one brandable mutation, like Flickr or Olipop). Across the brand names our own generator produces, which leans deliberately into those styles and then filters, roughly 7.4% have an available .com. That is about fifteen times the hit rate of a naive AI list, and it is still low, which is why volume and verification matter so much. The one thing that never changes is the need to check: the only way to know a .com is free is to ask the registry, name by name.

• State of Available .com Names (2026)Our registry-checked data on how few brandable .coms remain, by style and niche
• Available .com DomainsA live list of brandable .coms verified available right now

What to do instead of an AI name list

If you are naming a startup, do not treat an AI name list as a shortlist of domains, treat it as raw inspiration that is almost certainly unavailable as-is. Then do four things. Brainstorm in the styles where availability survives: coinages, compounds, and near-words, not single dictionary words. Generate many candidates, because the hit rate is low and you need volume to find the survivors. Check the .com on every candidate against the live registry before you get attached to one. And do not settle for a hyphen or a worse extension just because the first nice name is taken, re-roll instead. That loop, generate in available-friendly styles, check the registry on every name, and surface only the ones you can actually own, is exactly what DomainGenius automates.

• Brand Name CheckerCheck if a specific .com is available right now, live registry
• DomainGenius name generatorGenerate brandable names that are verified available, not just plausible

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