Import a Word List for Niche Domain Research

General word lists are fine for general names. If you're naming a brewery, a dental practice or a climbing gym, though, the best words are the ones your trade uses: hops, mash and cask; enamel and bite; crimp and belay. You probably have those words already, in a spreadsheet, a product catalogue or a page of notes. Import a word list once and every DNSLister tool that takes a list can use it.

What the import accepts

• File types: .txt (one word per line) or .csv. For a CSV, only the first column is read. Anything in later columns is ignored, and the summary tells you how many cells it skipped.
• Header row: tick "First row is a header (skip it)" if your file has one.
• Size: free accounts can import up to 1 MB or 5,000 rows. Premium raises that to 10 MB with no row limit.
• Duplicates and blanks are skipped, and the summary counts them.

You can import while creating a list (pick the file on the Create List page and it fills in a name from the filename) or add to an existing list later from Edit List.

Before you import a word list

A few minutes of tidying saves a lot of noise later.

1. One word or short phrase per row. "Belay" is useful. "Belay device, auto-locking, 2024 model" isn't.
2. Remove the words every business in your industry uses. "Craft" for a brewery or "smile" for a dentist will produce names that sound like everyone else's.
3. Keep a mix of nouns, verbs and descriptive words. Combination tools need something to pair.
4. Aim for 30 to 200 words. Too few and the results are thin; too many and the good pairs get buried.
5. Spell-check. A typo in the list becomes a typo in every name built from it.

If you're starting from nothing, building word lists for domain names covers where to find the words.

Using the list once it's in

A list is only useful once a tool reads from it.

• Domain Builder joins every word from a left list with every word from a right list. Import your trade words as one list and pair them with a short list of modifiers.
• Prepend / Append can use your list as its modifiers instead of a built-in theme.
• Word Combinations and Subset Combine take words typed in directly, so copy the strongest five or six from your list.

A worked example

A climbing gym (invented for this example) exports 140 words from its route-setting notes and equipment orders into a CSV. The second column holds the supplier's price, so only the first column is imported, and the summary reports the ignored cells. After removing duplicates and words like "climbing" and "gym," 96 words remain. In Domain Builder, the team pairs that list with a six-word list of place words like "yard," "house" and "works." Several of the open results, built from words like "crimp" and "chalk," sound like a local gym rather than a chain, which is what they wanted.

What to check after importing

• Do the counts in the summary match what you expected?
• Did the header row get imported as a word? If so, tick the header box and import again.
• Are there phrases that should have been single words?

Common mistakes

Importing a whole catalogue. Product codes and model years make poor domain words. Strip them first.

Leaving prices or notes in the first column. Only the first column is read, so put the words there.

Keeping one giant list. Separate lists for nouns, verbs and modifiers make the combination tools much easier to steer.

Related reading

• List Finder: Find Ready-Made Word Lists on the Web for Domain Names
• Score a Domain Name Idea Before a Big Search

Frequently asked questions

What file formats can I import?

A .txt file with one word per line, or a .csv file, where only the first column is used.

How big can the file be?

Up to 1 MB or 5,000 rows on a free account. Premium allows 10 MB with no row limit.