Starting a company is almost like having a baby.

So it makes sense that settling on a name for a new firm can be a just as personal, emotional and ultimately difficult as naming a newborn.

Take the technology industry, where capturing a funky, cool name that sets you apart from competitors, says something about you, and hasn't been copyrighted by someone else is often as labor intensive as getting the company off the ground.

The world is rife with tech firms with names that run the gamut, from safe and straightforward, even a little dry -- Computer Associates, for example -- to others such as HotJobs.com that are practical, descriptive and a bit fun; to those that are arbitrary, irreverent, sometimes confusing but memorable nonetheless, such as Grokster, Yahoo! and Amazon.

Finally, there are the zingers -- names that will never work because they ultimately make sense to only a few people.

Hooman Radfar nearly fell into that trap, when he and his partners almost named their Dormont-based business-to-business software firm Ontologix.

Radfar, the company's chief executive officer, said he knew that was a bad idea when Pradeep Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science and an adviser to the firm, heard it -- and laughed. "He couldn't even pronounce it," said Radfar, chuckling at his recollection.

The firm's current name -- Clearspring Technologies Inc. -- came to light when, after several frustrating brainstorming sessions, someone walked past its temporary offices at CMU and blurted, "like a clear spring of data," referring to what Radfar and his team wanted to ultimately offer their customers. "We said, 'That's not that bad. If no one decides on a better name, we're keeping it.' " No one did.

"Stickiness'' is ultimately what counts in a world where brands can give a firm the competitive edge. Some of the most frequently used nouns and verbs that roll off our lips each day are company-produced brand names that stick in people's minds.

The most obvious, Google -- the "big daddy" of tech-oriented brand names -- has reached the pinnacle of naming success by becoming a frequently used verb. "Google 'em'' has become part of Americans' lexicon, referring to the practice of using the Internet search engine to find information on individuals, companies, products and virtually all subjects.

"The name is ultimately an empty vessel that you can fill with meaning," said naming expert James Bell, a senior partner at New York City-based Lippincott Mercer, a corporate brand agency. "The simplicity, cleanliness and efficiency that Google's [search engine] has is superior. So the more people use it, the more it becomes what people refer to."

There can be danger when a name links itself to a fad that eventually fades.

Just ask Inderpal Guglani, who launched Oakland-based eMoonlighter.com during the height of the tech industry's late '90s boom, when employers were desperate to find tech help and willing to pay top dollar for moonlighting employees. When the dot.com bubble burst, so did the demand for his firm's services, making the name more a hindrance than a help.

Luckily, Guglani's firm bought out its closest competitor, Guru.com, in 2003, taking on the latter name that had better name recognition and thus staying power.

Guru.com had spent $16 million promoting its name, so it was a no-brainer to drop the eMoonlighter brand, said Guglani, Guru.com's CEO. "You can acquire a brand but it takes time to build -- Guru already had that in place."

The key to naming a firm is striking a delicate balance between the practical and the whimsical, said David Jaffe, a partner and chair of emerging business at Downtown-based law firm Schnader Harrison Lewis & Segal.

"The idea is to try to create a distinctive name that creates brand identification and cachet," he said. "But you must also develop an association between the company and the product or service.

The past decade also added another hurdle to the process -- the Internet. Not only do firms have to tackle developing the right name, but they also have to make sure the Web address is available and affordable.

Many Web addresses have nothing on them but already have been purchased by people looking to resell them at astronomical prices. For example, when he was seeking to ditch the eMoonlighter.com name before he bought Guru.com, Guglani liked and wanted the iFreelancer.com name and Web page. But the owner of the name turned down his $3,000 offer and wanted $10,000 instead. Guglani said "no."

Overpriced and already-taken Web addresses sent WebGekko President Raymond Frato back to the drawing board about 100 times. He and his partner, Christine Durstein, spent three months scouring for an available Web address and finally settled on WebGekko -- the "Web" part describes what they do and gekko is a nod to the duo's collective outdoorsy natures.

The Mt. Lebanon-based software services firm's clever name hasn't helped its sales, however. "I think we had the misfortune of starting our business at the downturn," Frato said.

Marketing power hasn't been an issue for South Side-based Xactix -- pronounced like "exact-ix" -- despite its quirky moniker.

It took co-founders Kyle Lebouitz and Ken Gabriel six hours to come up with the name at the height of the dot.com boom, when quirky names and sky-high investment deals were the norm. Six years later, misspelling remains an issue, but the pair's company that makes micro-electro-mechanical devices has survived tech's tough times.

Lebouitz has no plans to change the name, even though he concedes, "People who know us very well still butcher our name a lot.''

Sometimes, however, a name is just one that the owner has to have. Take Caracal, a fledgling Ford City-based biotech firm.

Its founder, Olle Kordina, a cat lover, was visiting a retirement home for circus cats last year in Florida when he saw a feline with tufts of hair in its ears that was slightly bigger than your average house pet. It was a caracal, and after learning that such cats are agile, skilled hunters, Kordina was hooked.

"I wanted a name that didn't describe what I was doing -- I just wanted a nice name," said Kordina, the firm's founder and chief technology officer. "I wanted to give the company a name that was just like I would name a baby."