Get a name NOW!

Advice from a new blogger to future bloggers: Get a name for your blog NOW!!

Deciding on starting a blog was the easy part. (it took me just a few months to make up my mind). Getting a name for it.... well, that was a whole different story. My blog was not going to be on one particular subject, and I obviously intended to write about my thoughts, a little bit of this and a little bit of that...... so I thought of various names to suit the idea.

I soon found that I was not the first one with this idea. I tried "thoughtgallery.blogspot". It was taken. Then I came up with "loudthoughts.blogspot". That was taken too. "loudthinking.blogspot", "openmind", "thoughtalbum" and then "knickknacks", "miscellany", "potpourri", "patchwork", "mosaic", "mishmash", "hodgepodge"..... all taken! Some of them seem to have been long abandoned. I found that the last entry in one was 4 years ago, and in a couple of others, there was a solitary entry, made ages ago. Anyway, they were not available. Just for fun, I tried "newword.blogspot", and found a blog of that name! Then, "latestblog".... Taken! Finally I tried "Sigh.blogspot"....... but siiighhh!!, there is a blog even by that name!!!

As a next step, I thought of coining a word by linking a number of words together, like they say the German language allows. The first attempt was
"newtoblogging". But....you guessed it.... there is already such a blog. And, believe it or not, there are blogs whose names are "nonameavailable" and "bitsandpieces", and also "abitofthisandabitofthat"! . I was infact quite surprised that "cannotfindagoodname" was available. One would expect thousands to have tried that. Well, it was not a good enough name for my blog.

I then hit upon the idea of a blog name in kannada, which is my language anyway. The very first name I tried, "Tunukugalu" which means "bits and pieces" was available!! I hung on to it, ....for a while. As I went on my walk that day, I mused about all this...., amused by all this. I also reflected on how walking was always a good opportunity for musing. It was then, that another possible name occurred to me. I came home and tried it. Bingo! "walk a-musing" was mine! When I start a kannada blog, I will call it "tunukugalu"!

Now my advice to all those who are "thinkingofblogging" - this name is available, by the way, so hurry if you like it! - get a name today. Reserve your space. With about 100million bloggers already, and the number growing steadily, there may not be many words in the English language still left for you to use as a name for a blog. You can start writing in the blog at leisure, even a decade from now. No hurry there!