best names for holiday cottages

[Jimbo]

... we were looking to call our Villa Jenna.

Jenna's OK, I think, because it could just as easily be the name of a flower or a place as a person. It's those humdrum-sounding names that so many of our parents lumbered us with that don't (to me) quite conjure up the image of a exciting and romantic holiday retreat where I'd choose to spend a couple of weeks.

Villa Maureen, Villa Mavis, Villa Brian, Villa Malcolm ... bit unfair on these guys, I suppose. They may be the life and soul of any party.

Jim (Villa James - hmm?)

[fincafern]

I prefer numero uno of the four you have selected, but it's all a matter of personal taste, as I said before, causeway might cause conflict with the searches ? ( thinking of Giant's Causeway.) Perhaps you could do another poll when you have decided definitely on your choices ?

Villa Jenna is more preferable than Villa Mavis for me - doesn't Jenna mean white ? You don't state your location, JenRoy, in your profile, but I assume you are somewhere fairly warm - if so, it could be OK - we have Casa Blancas and Villa Blancas.
I did apologise in advance and I am so pleased you are not going to call it Villa JenRoy. and glad you didn't take offence.

[Giddy Goat]

Emoh Ruo was a popular one in Oz!

[fincafern]

That's awful

[cromercrabholiday]

We are known to one and all as 31 Harbord Road - this could be a mistake, but Jane has a hatred of house names.

The next door cottage is Forsythia cottage, which sounds lovely but has less accomodation, is not well maintained and last time we saw the sheets being taken out on changeover, you could shoot peas through them.

We have got several guests from Forsythia cottage when they looked at ours but maybe we could have got them originally if we called it - Sea View (if you stand on tiptoe at the top of the stairs), Camelia Cottage (nice one in the garden) or JaneandJohn (perhaps not!).

John

[Jenroy]

fincafern

How could I take offence?

The villa is in Calabria and we looked at Casa prefixes, but felt that was more generic and as a villa is what it is we looked in that direction.

This thread made me review our thought process and as we have yet to commit to a web site then here seemed to be a good time and place to ask the question.

My apologies to weardalebeka - I did not mean to hijack the thread.

[fincafern]

"High Sea View" or "JJ's" are infinitely preferable for me, John. Oh, I must stop this, I've broken my leg and I'm bored !

[Nightowl]

Nighty have you noticed how the spanish have a penchant for naming their houses after themselves?

Mind you, they do it openly, not try to make a new word up, So you'll find maybe a 'Pedro y Juanita' or a 'Manuel y Dolores'.

It must be handy for visitors trying to find you!!!

that's the thing, ones that sound genuinely spanish (or local at least) I don't mind, it's the brit made up ones that sound odd to me. I probably ought to think of a name for ours really - La Loma de Sancti Petri (the urb we are on) means ' the hill of sancti petri - not exactly inviting - and when you get the full name of the area (La Loma del Puerco), it's even less inviting (the Hill of the Pig!).

But yes, villa Malcolm doesn't really have the right ring to it does it? (or ours might be Villa Colin..(my hubby) and you know what everyone thinks about the name Colin....) [/quote]

[Giddy Goat]

The villa is in Calabria and we looked at Casa prefixes, but felt that was more generic and as a villa is what it is we looked in that direction.

This thread made me review our thought process and as we have yet to commit to a web site then here seemed to be a good time and place to ask the question.

Jenroy, in your case it seems as if we're looking at two things - a name for the villa and a name for the website. They don't need to be the same, as you know. If you're really committed to having your own website, then one which the search engines will get hold of and point punters to your property seems the best way forward.

Someone's already pinched 'calabriamagica' which I rather liked (but I would - have a look at ours! ) but calabriansun might be a nice one - it's available but bellacalabria isn't, unfortunately, nor is southernitaly, casacalabria or villacalabria except for the more obscure suffixes. But you get the idea anyway. Calabriamia is taken, but calabrianostra is available for .co.uk (but not.com)

Anyway, some ideas... sorry Weardalebeka for the slight detour from the main question.

[Musetta]

true - no need to the website to be anything at all like your house name so I wouldn't worry about it.

I actually do not like our house's name at ALL - difficult I think for people to spell/remember, etc. but it is very, very common for homes in Italy to have names...and ours did when we bought it....and the house has been there for quite a few years so I didn't think it was right to change it!
(as for Villa Jenna...is it a villa? then I think that's a good start...a Casa or Casetta brings up VERY different images in my mind than a Villa - so use whatever describes it the best!)

[Jenroy]

GG

Somebody else must have read your post as before I could register calabriansun.com as it had just been taken.

Apparently there are companies, which monitor the search engines for domain titles and when a .com domain has been searched they register it in their own name and sell it on, which appears to have happened here.

.co.uk is available though

edited to provide further information

[Giddy Goat]

That's curious Jenroy as on Network Solutions it says calabriansun.com is available, as is .net etc - not .co.uk though unfortunately. When I tried that as a URL, I was taken directly to another domain name site, where it's claimed that .com is also spoken for, but not .co.uk

All you can do is try to register the .com one with Network Soulutions and see what happens?

Otherwise see if calabriasun is worth playing with?

[Jenroy]

It was network solutions which registered the name for themselves, consequently I went for .co.uk as I am unsure as to whether .co.uk or .com make a great deal of difference in perception.

[Martha]

I prefer number one of those, too....

I think GG's point is an excellent one and not at all thread creep!

Athough it's true that the name doesn't have to be the same as the website, it's a plus in my view - one less thing for guests to remember. If you do have a different name, you should probably try and keep all your online promotion based around the domain name, or you risk diluting your google rankings.

If you can get a relevant domain name, it's a great start to achieving high positions in Google searches for several different reasons, as well as instantly giving people a bit of an idea of what the place is like. It's not the whole story of course and everyone's case is different...especially as your own geography, tourist attractions etc etc influence what people search for.


For what it's worth, our considerations were:
We wanted to keep the word Chalet in the name (some people don't do this, but I felt is was important as explained above)

We didn't want anything too snowy as it's a big summer destination too.

Then we considered names that would be unique (at least within the Chamonix Valley) and relevant to people looking at the house, and would suit it well.

For instance there must be a thousand Marmottes and Gentianes in the Alps!

Chalet Praz (the village) - already gone, and anyway there are quite a lot of Prazs (grammar??) in the area, so might be confusing.
Chalet La Flegere (the nearest lift) already gone
Chalet Dru (a very beautiful peak that dominates the view) Already gone
Chalet Mont Blanc - Confusing as Mont Blanc Lodge is close by. Domain name taken anyway
Chalet Les Bois - Already gone several times over (it's the next village along)
Chalet Les Sapins, Meleze, les Sorbiers (various trees) - no-one would remember these, I think, apart from maybe Sapins and there are a lot of places calles les Sapins

Chalet la Foret - perfect!

Domain available (slightly to my surprise, as there are a few others in the Alps, though none near us).

Suits our wooded setting, it rhymes, it's an easy word for non-french speakers, though some people have been known to say La Floret (like a bit of cauliflower, perhaps?)

Finally it's a bit of an insider joke to me as it's the name of a world famous and unbelievably trendy shop in Tokyo's Harajuku district
http://www.laforet.ne.jp/index.html

[Giddy Goat]

Hi Martha - good to have a web designer in the discussion! Perhaps you can tell us what your view is on paying a bit more for a couple of suffixes if they're available and not just leaving it at one? In Jenroy's case, he's nabbed .com which is good, but if .co.uk had been available as well, would you have advised him/her to go for it in addition? We bought .co.uk and .com when we registered ours.