How to Name Your Chatbot? Bot Name Examples

Learn how to choose the perfect name for your bot.

Domas Bitvinskas

Co-founder, Atlasmic

In the world of e-commerce and just business, in general, chatbots have become one of the most efficient and trusted methods for customer service operations. Bots can be calibrated and taught to answer a lot of questions for worried clients, reducing the workload for your employees. In fact, studies and forecasts show that in the coming 5 years, around 85% of customer corporations will handle business without a human operator - e.g. with a chatbot. But why are their names important and how to name them in order to have a ring-like Siri or Alexa?

Why do chatbots need a name at all?

Even though chatbots are very efficient and becoming more widespread almost every week (just look at the stats below).

It should also be said that there are a lot of drawbacks that customers see in having to communicate with a chatbot. Even though you might know that the bot has answers to 10,000 questions programmed into itself, the user doesn’t think about it. And partially, they’re right - artificial beings can never replace human communication, but they can definitely be very efficient in terms of customer support. So, in order to enable this efficiency, your job as the business owner or support team leader is to make your chatbot more appealing, and your customers - more willing to trust it.

The main obstacles that make customers lack trust in chatbots are mainly psychological. They don’t think that something without human traits can understand and solve more complex issues, so they don’t even try. Your main obstacle is the perception of the customers which needs to be overcome, in order to move forward and provide more efficient 24/7 customer service. Here’s where chatbot names come into play. They do a lot more than just label your bot. They can help customers be more trusting and willingly open to communicating with bots.

A few benefits for naming your bot:

Relatability - people relate to people, not bots. It seems that people also tend to associate human names with certain qualities subconsciously. Choosing the right name and introducing the bot in the first message (sent proactively) can help customers relate and make the communication seem more genuine, personal.
Humanization - as we mentioned, a human name should at least partially eliminate the barrier (psychological) which prevents customers from trusting bots
Bonds - a name is probably the cornerstone of identity. If the bot has an identity, people can trust and bond with the bot, instead of just typing in words, they will read into its answers, try to make more sense.

How to begin the process of naming your chatbot?

If you’re not yet into using chatbots, take a look at the chart below to see how much it can benefit your business (e.g. increase customer satisfaction, boost revenue, etc.).

Hence, there are tons of benefits for investing effort into the refinement and betterment of your chatbot. One of the ways to better your chatbot is to name. How to choose a name, you might ask?

Well, you can read this article on Inc.com that we’ve found (Link). It lists the 20 names for kids that results in the most success, regarding their future. The same goes for bots, you can find names that are more trustworthy, and inch by inch, they move you closer to having an all-around successful chatbot.

Here are a few pointers for naming your bot and where to start off:

Begin by creating an identity

The identity of a chatbot and bot names are inseparable from your brand and its tone of voice. For example, it can be an eager, jumpy, and very casual, friendly bot. Or it can be a serious, neutral, more down-to-earth example.

Brainstorm name ideas

You can do a simple quiz on social media and ask your customers or people, in general, which of a handful of names they find trustworthy, dependable, likeable, etc. Such surveys can help determine the best choices for a name.

Associate a visual identity

A name is not enough without a visual identity. If the bot is only distinguishable by the words it writes, no benefit is gained. Whether you draw up a stick figure, an illustrated robot, or anything else, it’s always a good idea to have a visual identity for your chatbot, alongside the name itself. For example, an avatar, a colour scheme, or other features can help distinguish and make it more unique.

Is it a human-like identity or something purely robotized?

Studies showed that customers tend to trust female bots a third more of the time when compared to gender-neutral or male characteristics. This is why Apple uses Siri and Amazon has Alexa – both with distinguishably feminine voices and capable of catering to the needs of the customers.

What to avoid when naming a bot?

We’ll also share some simple pointers to help you avoid mistakes in naming your bot:

Don’t go super fancy as Elon Musk did with his children's names. People like simplicity and something with a ring to it.
Whilst you can include your brand name or puns with it, try to avoid tacky and overused generic, bland titles.
Alliteration or puns, can be used however, it should be creative.
The shorter – the better. If the name has more than 16 symbols, it’s not going to fly (unless the target audience is very profound and the name has something to do with the domestic intricacies of the market).

Here’s a guide of values that define why and how names impact the efficiency of your chatbots.

Bot Names & Examples

After you read all the important stuff, there are some shortcuts you can take and just copy these names for your bot. We found those on multiple locations, businesses - if something works for someone, why just don’t copy that?

These are the bot names you can copy and use for your business:

Ruby
(A precious stone that could reflect your great quality of service)
Volt
(A unit for the electric potential for technology business)
Pepper
(A hot-tasting powder that could be used as a funny bot name)
Quick bot
(Self-explanatory name for quick service)
Lucy
(A name from a 2014 popular movie)
Nick
(Pretty common real name)
Oliver
(Also a pretty common real name)
Proto
(A word for the primitive of something)
Rob
(Pretty common real name, but similar to Robot)
Ultron
(A supervillain who appears in Marvel Comics)

Conclusion

To sum things up, the chat bot name has a significant impact on customer perception of your AI customer support service. If your bot is more relatable and human-like, you can expect them to be trusted more. Hope you stay creative, yet down-to-earth with your name creation, adding wit and unique personality where it's needed.

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