Domain Generator is now Onymu. The product stopped being a domain generator a while ago: it checks a name across 1,400 extensions and nine social platforms, with trademark screening next. A name that is also the name of the category cannot become a brand, not in Google's results and not at the trademark office, so we replaced it with a coined word we can own. Your account, saved lists and the tools do not change.
This is the long version. It covers what changed, why a descriptive name that ranked for its own category turned out to be a ceiling rather than an asset, how we tested the new name with the same tools we give everyone else, and what happens to domaingenerator.co. If you are naming something of your own, the middle sections are the part worth reading.
What changed, and what did not
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Domain Generator | Onymu |
| Mark | A gradient letter D | An open ring and a dot, drawn in whatever colour the theme is using |
| Wordmark | Domain Generator | onymu.com |
| Address | domaingenerator.co | domaingenerator.co for now; onymu.com already resolves and points here |
| Tools, data, accounts | Unchanged |
The tool at /domain-generator keeps its name, because that is what it is: a domain generator. Saved domains, favourite extensions, search history, API keys and the MCP connection all carry over untouched. Nothing was migrated, because nothing needed to be; the name changed and the database did not. It is still built by the same small studio, Utios, in Bratislava.
Why a descriptive name stopped working
We did not rename because the old name was ugly. It was clear, it said what the product did, and for a while that was exactly right. It stopped being right for three concrete reasons, each of which we can show rather than assert.
Google reads it as a category, not a name
Google's documentation on site names is unusually direct about this. Its advice: "Avoid using a generic name. A generic name like 'Best Dentists In Iowa' is unlikely to be selected by our system as a site name, unless that's an extremely well-recognized brand name." "Domain Generator" is "Best Dentists In Iowa" with fewer words. It describes a class of tools, and every registrar on earth ships one.
The search results say the same thing. On 29 August 2026 a search for "domain generator" returned, in order:
| # | Who ranks | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wix | Website builder |
| 2 | Shopify | E-commerce platform |
| 3 | Network Solutions | Registrar |
| 4 | Wikipedia | An article on domain generation algorithms, which is malware |
| 5 | IONOS | Registrar and host |
| 6 | Squarespace | Website builder |
| 7 | Canva | Design tool |
| 8 | Instant Domain Search | Search tool |
| 9 | Namecheap | Registrar |
That is a category page, not a brand page. Eight of the nine are companies for whom a generator is a lead magnet for something else they sell, and the ninth is a Wikipedia article about algorithms that "periodically generate a large number of domain names that can be used as rendezvous points with their command and control servers". When the fourth result for your own name is about botnets, the name is not yours.
It also explains something we could never fix with markup. The expanded result with a site name and a row of sitelinks appears when someone searches for a brand. Google says sitelinks "are automated" and are shown only "when we think they'll be useful to the user". A user typing the name of a category is not looking for a specific site, so the block never fires, however tidy the structured data underneath. Answer engines work the same way: they resolve entities, and an entity whose name is a common phrase is hard to pin down. Our post on how AI search surfaces brands covers why a distinct name matters more there, not less.
The trademark office agrees
The USPTO sorts marks along a spectrum, and where a name lands decides whether you can ever own it.
| Category | USPTO example | Registrable? |
|---|---|---|
| Fanciful (invented word) | Exxon, Pepsi | Yes, strongest |
| Arbitrary (real word, unrelated) | Apple for computers | Yes |
| Suggestive | Coppertone for sun care | Yes |
| Descriptive | "Creamy" for yogurt | Only after years of use prove distinctiveness |
| Generic | "Bicycle" for bicycles | No, never |
In the USPTO's own words, generic terms "do not indicate source and cannot function as trademarks". "Domain Generator" for a domain generator is "Bicycle" for bicycles. The one famous exception proves how expensive the exception is: Booking.com spent years and a Supreme Court case getting its name registered, and won on 30 June 2020 only because consumer surveys showed people treated the term as a brand. The Court's rule was narrow: "A term styled 'generic.com' is a generic name for a class of goods or services only if the term has that meaning to consumers." Eight justices to one, and it turned on survey evidence a small studio is never going to commission. Onymu is an invented word, which puts it at the top of that table on day one. If you are weighing a descriptive name yourself, our guide to trademark risk for domain names walks through the same spectrum from the other side.
The product had outgrown it
Generating domains is now one of four things the product does. It checks availability across 1,400 extensions as you type. It checks the same name on nine social platforms, X, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Discord, GitHub, Telegram and Twitch. Trademark screening is next. And the whole thing is exposed as an MCP server, so an assistant can run the search inside a conversation. The old name described the first of those and the least distinctive: the table above shows nine companies offering one for free. New users read the name and concluded we were a feature they could get anywhere.
There was a smaller, more embarrassing cost. domaingenerator.app is a different site run by different people. Our structured data had to carry a sentence telling search engines we are not affiliated with it. When you are explaining to a machine which company you are, the name has stopped doing its job.
How we chose Onymu
The name is built on -onym, the Greek root for "name". It is the piece of English that gives you synonym, pseudonym, eponym and anonymous, from Greek ónoma, or ónyma in the Aeolic dialect. A product about names, built on the word for a name, without being the English word. Five letters, no dictionary meaning, nothing for a spellchecker to correct into something else.
Then we searched for it. On 29 August 2026 a search for "onymu" returned crossword solvers, anagram lists and the Wikipedia entry for the suffix. No company, no product, no dictionary. An empty result page is exactly what you want from a new brand: there is nothing to displace, and the first page that defines the word will be this one.
Even Google did this. Its own history page records that the search engine was first called BackRub, and that "soon after, Backrub was renamed Google (phew)". Coined names read as strange for about a month. We wrote about that effect in why the best startup names sound weird at first, and this time we took our own advice.
What our own tools said about both names
Before anything was decided we ran both names through the availability search, against the same 25 extensions, on 29 August 2026.
| Across 25 extensions | onymu | domaingenerator |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 25 | 16 |
| Taken | 0 | 9 |
| .com free | Yes | No |
| Taken by others | None | .com, .net, .org, .io, .ai, .app, .de, .online (and .co, which is ours) |
The second column is the whole argument in numbers. Every extension that matters for a descriptive name was already gone, to eight different owners, none of them us. The coined word was free everywhere, including the .com, for the plain reason that nobody wanted the string yet. That is the trade a coined name offers: recognition starts at zero, ownership starts at one hundred percent.
We ran the handles too, because the tool tells everyone that a name is only available if the domain and the handles are. Two of the nine platforms already had an onymu account. We treated that as a to-do list rather than a veto, which is the right reading when the domain side is clean. If you want to see the same checks on a name of your own, the search runs them in one go.
What happens to domaingenerator.co
The move happens in stages, and the domain is deliberately the last of them.
Stage one, now: the name and the mark. The site's structured data already says Onymu, with "Domain Generator" and the old domain spellings listed as alternate names, and the organisation description reads "formerly Domain Generator". That is not decoration. Google picks the displayed site name from WebSite structured data first, and its documentation says that an alternateName "allows Google to consider other options if your preferred choice isn't selected". Listing the old name is how we tell an engine that indexed us under it that the two are one entity, not a new site.
Stage two, later: the address. onymu.com already resolves and currently sends you here. When the switch happens, every URL on domaingenerator.co will answer with a permanent redirect to the same path on onymu.com, we will file a Change of Address in Search Console, and the redirects stay up for at least a year, which is Google's floor: "keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year". Google also warns that visibility "may fluctuate temporarily during the move", and that a site this size should move every URL at once rather than section by section, so that is the plan. Bookmarks, links and the MCP connector keep working throughout; we will post here before anything moves. The mechanics are the ones in our own guides to changing a domain name without losing rankings and 301 redirects for domain changes.
What does not move is the data underneath. The list the search reads held 344,821,708 registered domains on 29 August 2026 and is refreshed every day; for scale, Verisign counted 401.6 million registrations across all extensions at the end of the second quarter of 2026. The name on the door changes. The list does not.
If you are naming something: how to avoid the same bill
- Say the name and the category in one sentence. "Domain Generator is a domain generator." If both halves are the same words, you have a category, and page one belongs to whoever spends most on it.
- Place it on the USPTO spectrum before you buy anything. If a competitor could honestly describe their product with your name, it is descriptive at best. Registration then depends on years of use you have not had yet.
- Search the bare word. Crossword pages and anagram lists are a good sign. A registrar, a Wikipedia article or a malware family is not.
- Check the .com and the handles in the same minute. A coined word that is free on 25 extensions and taken on two platforms is a name. A descriptive phrase that is free on .site and .store is a placeholder. Our post on brand name versus domain name covers which to settle first.
- If you must rename, rename early and move in stages. Name and mark first, structured data with the old name as an alias, domain last, redirects kept for a year.
Frequently asked questions
Is Onymu a new company?
No. Same studio, same people, same product, same database. Onymu is the name; Utios in Bratislava is still the company behind it, and the tools you used yesterday are the tools you use today.
Do I need to change bookmarks, the MCP connector or anything in my account?
Not now. domaingenerator.co keeps serving the site until the domain moves, and when it does, the old address will redirect permanently to the new one. We will announce the date here before it happens.
Why not keep the word "domain" in the name?
Because any name containing the category inherits the category's ceiling. It lands on the descriptive end of the USPTO's spectrum, competes with 401 million existing registrations for every extension, and reads to a search engine as a query rather than a brand. A name with "domain" in it would have been a smaller version of the same problem.
Does the old name disappear completely?
It stays where it is honest: as the name of the /domain-generator tool, and as an alternate name in the site's structured data so search engines connect the old identity to the new one. Everywhere a brand is meant, it now says Onymu.
What to do next
If you have a name in mind, run it through the search and see the domains and the handles answer together. If you work inside an assistant, connect the MCP server and ask it. And if you only wanted to know what happened to Domain Generator: it grew up, and it got a name of its own.
