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Stripe Almost Got Named PayDemon. Here's How They Picked 'Stripe' Instead.

By Patrick Collison · Founding Stories · 2 min read

We couldn't decide between PayDemon and Stripe. So we set a deadline — if we can't settle on a name by December 20th, 2010, we just default to Stripe. We couldn't. So Stripe it became.

Key Points

The original name was /dev/payments — got rejected because you can't have a leading slash
PayDemon (with a mascot!) and PayForge (until someone pointed out 'other connotations') were real contenders
They set a deadline: if no better name by December 20th, default to Stripe. Apple did the same thing.

We decided that if we could not settle on a name by December 20th, we were just going to default to Stripe. And we couldn't think of a more compelling name. So Stripe it became.

/dev/payments

Collison: This is an embarrassing story. /dev/payments — we thought it was a super awesome cool name. The world didn't quite agree. When we went to incorporate, it was rejected — we had checked and you can have a slash in a name, but you can't have a leading slash.

Being determined entrepreneurs, we overcame that and incorporated as 's dev sl.' It was really bad. There were many problems with this name.

We thought /dev/payments was awesome. Incorporated as 's dev sl.' It was really bad.

PayDemon and PayForge

Collison: We came up with memorable names like PayDemon. We thought it was super clever because we could have this awesome mascot. We bought both domain versions. We still own both.

We were also enamored with PayForge — this kind of blacksmith idea, the act of creation. And then a friend pointed out the other connotations. Good point.

PayDemon — we could have an awesome mascot. PayForge — until a friend pointed out the other connotations.

100 Random Words

Collison: Someone had the bright idea — what if we assemble a big list of words and email all the domain owners? We assembled a list of about 100 words that seemed like generally cromulent words and emailed them all.

Only 10% responded. Of those, most wanted millions of dollars. We were really struggling.

100 random words. Emailed all the domain owners. 10% responded. Most wanted millions.

The Default Timer

Collison: The owner of stripe.com generously responded with an offer within our plausible budgetary range. But we couldn't decide between PayDemon and Stripe. I swear I'm not making this up.

We decided — if we cannot settle on a name by December 20th, 2010, we just default to Stripe. We couldn't think of a more compelling name by December 20th. So Stripe it became.

If we can't settle by December 20th, we default to Stripe. We couldn't. So Stripe it became.

Apple Did the Same Thing

Collison: I was reading The Little Kingdom by Mike Moritz — a history of Apple. Apparently Apple went through a similar thing. They couldn't think of a good name. Same timeout — if we haven't thought of a better name by such and such a date, screw it, Apple. So we subsequently learned there was precedent.

Apple couldn't think of a name either. Same timeout. Same result. There was precedent.