How tech firms like Google and Apple come up with names

The words evoke images of flowers or a bird spreading its wings. But they’re names in the tech industry, too — a company that will focus on bringing geothermal energy systems to homes; a Qualcomm processor; and a Palo Alto business that sells Wi-Fi signal boosters.

Companies can spend thousands of dollars on experts to come up with names that sometimes seem crazy. Finding a winner is increasingly difficult, especially as domain names for websites fill up. At the end of 2016, there were 142 million domain name registrations ending in .com and .net, up from 114 million in late 2011, according to VeriSign, a domain name registry….

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