I’ve used both approaches in the past, and both have worked well.

I recently helped to build and launch WillRobotsTakeMyJob with Dimitar Raykov. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out what that website does. Answers one question, quite well! Very key word heavy, and in a lot of cases, exactly someone might type into the Google search bar.

How about BotList which I launched with Seth Louey and Ben Tossell? Think it lists Bots? Wasn’t really a stretch to come up with that. Again very clear from the name what the project does.

How about Cymbolism, any idea what that does? You won’t find that word in the dictionary because I made it up.

Cymbolism is a tool that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect.

I could have used something like WordColorAssociation (I thought about it), but I wanted something that designers would remember when they heard the name.

What about Statamic? When I was working with my friend Jack McDade on a new flat file CMS we had a really hard time coming up with a name. We ended up mushing two words (static & dynamic) together to form an entirely new word. People being unable to pronounce the name has in a way become part of the brand. In a recent redesign Jack actually added the pronunciation right on the home page. Once you tell people about the name, they get it, but it does take explaining sometimes.

Try googling Statamic, and you won’t find any results unrelated to the flat file CMS we built, why would you it’s something we came up with just for this purpose.