Electricity is pretty incredible. Think how easy it is to take the electricity provided by your utility company, and use it to cook your meals, power entertainment devices, operate an air conditioner or heat pump, charge devices, run motorized equipment, and so much more.
You could not be a domain investor if electricity had not been invented. But are electrical terms a good idea as part of a domain name portfolio? We all know that the domain name Tesla.com sold for a lot. What about the names of other scientists and inventors from electrical fields, particularly those who had an official electrical unit named after them?
You have undoubtedly heard names such as Faraday, Edison, Franklin, Tesla, Watt and Joule, among others, but how do they fit into the story of the development of electricity?
A Short History of Electricity: Ancient Roots
The roots of electricity date back at least 2800 years. The ancient Greeks discovered what we now call static electricity, certain materials when rubbed together become charged. The Greek philosopher Thales performed early experiments in about 600 BCE.
Practical uses for electricity have existed for a long time too. For example, Ancient Egyptian writings mention using electric catfish from the Nile river to produce shocks for treating patients.
Even the storage of electricity in batteries is ancient, with the Baghdad battery dating to the first century AD. It is speculated it was used for medical purposes.
Who Was the First to Use the Term Electricity?
The term electricity is much newer, however, with Merriam-Webster suggesting a first use in 1646. William Gilbert, a UK physicist, is credited with initial use of the word electricity, although several others at the same time were responsible for quickly making the term popular.The term is based on the Greek word elektron which comes from Greek for amber, one of the substances commonly used in generating static electric charges.
Ben Franklin
So how does Ben Franklin come into this? The famous, and highly dangerous, kite experiment of June, 1752 showed that the tiny sparks of static electricity, known since the early Greeks, and atmospheric lightning, were the same phenomena, just on very different scales.
It turns out with delays in information sharing at that time, often several scientists independently discovered or proved phenomena. French scientist Thomas-François Dalibard actually carried out an experiment proving the nature of electricity about a month earlier than Franklin, on May 10, 1752. But that experiment was partly in response to a proposal from Franklin, so Franklin deserves credit even if he was not first to successfully carry out the experiment.
Static and Current Electricity; AC and DC Current
The electricity that powers your home is current, not static, electricity, and it is AC, alternating current, not DC, direct current, such as the types of currents provided by a dry cell or automotive battery. A current is simply a flow of electrical charges. The flow is all in one direction in DC, and alternating back and forth in AC.
Modern Battery and Unit Volt
So that brings us to Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist, who in 1800 produced a modern battery using zinc, copper and salt water, and thereby generated an electric current.
Electricity and Magnetism are Related
Michael Faraday, an English physicist, was the first to prove that magnetism and electricity were intimately connected. He showed that if you rapidly move a magnet in the space inside a coil of wire, an electric current can be briefly induced. This is the heart of the process that creates the electricity in power stations or generators.
Not much later, in about 1861, Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell elegantly described electromagnetic phenomena in four equations. To this day, Maxwell equations are considered among the most beautiful and important equations in science.
More Electrical Units
We should also mention two other James, James Watt and James Prescott Joule. Both had many inventions and contributions. In Joule’s case, he helped formulate the equivalence between different forms of energy, and the physics unit of energy is the Joule in his honour. The unit for power, the rate of energy production or use is the Watt, named in honour of James Watt. Your electrical company, at least in North America, probably charges you by the kilowatt-hour, a unit of energy, but they could more properly express it in joules.
The unit for electrical current, the Ampere or Amp, is named in honour of André-Marie Ampère, while the electrical energy potential per charge, the Volt, is named after Alessandro Volta.
The Current Wars: Edison and Westinghouse
It became clear by the late 1800s that electricity had massive commercial potential. That usually brings disputes, and this is no exception. In the 1880s and 1890s we saw the War of the Currents. On the one hand, inventor and businessman Thomas Edison pushed for electric utilities based on DC power, while engineer and businessman George Westinghouse push a rival AC system. The war was bitter with accusations, misrepresentation and more.
We all know that alternating current, AC, won out, with almost all homes and businesses powered by some form of AC. Why is that? Voltage, strictly speaking it is called electric potential difference, is a measure of the energy per charge. Different devices use different voltages. While it is easier to directly use DC, it turns out that it is much easier to efficiently transform between different voltages with AC, and in the end that was the deciding factor. It also is easier to convert AC to DC for devices, such as electronics, that operate from DC voltages.
Nikola Tesla
So who was Nikola Tesla? He was an inventor and electrical engineer, born in Serbia, although he lived much of his life in the USA. He worked at Westinghouse Electric, and many key patents including AC induction motors, polyphase AC electrical networks, and generators are his work. He also did early work in X-ray imaging, and several other areas. The unit for magnetic flux density is called the Tesla in his honour.
Electric Cars: Early Roots
When you think of electric cars, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a Tesla or some other current electric car. Electric cars have a very long history, however. There were numerous early attempts to make an electrified carriage, with the models produced by William Morrison in Iowa in about 1890 among the first successful ones. In 1900 electric vehicles made up one-third of all vehicles.
Then, with cheap gasoline and lack of attention to human-induced climate change, internal combustion engine vehicles dominated. However, now we are on a path to a world that will soon be dominated by electric vehicles. This article shows the growth of electric vehicles globally.
The Tesla Domain Name Sale
The effort, and long acquisition process, that Elon Musk took to secure the domain name Tesla.com is well known. James Iles has written up the key points in the case study Why Musk Acquired Tesla.com for $11 Million. What we now considered Tesla, at that time operated on TeslaMotors.com. With Tesla broadening into rooftop solar and power storage and conversion devices for homes, Musk wanted the name Tesla that did not box the company in the way that TeslaMotors.com did.
On the NamePros Blog, @James Iles interviewed Stuart Grossman, who held the name and ultimately sold it to Tesla. At that time, the exact price was covered by a NDA, so was not mentioned, but it was later revealed.
Domain Names and Electrical Units
The Tesla case is a well-established company seeking to upgrade their name, and is therefore not directly relevant to name acquisitions by startups in the electric sector. Also, the name had previously been successfully defended in an UDRP attempt, not from Tesla Motors but an unrelated company with the name Tesla. That helped to establish the domain name would need to be purchased to be obtained.
We are currently seeing significant expansion in electrified vehicles of all types. Has that translated into increased demand, and worth, of related domain names?
Let’s have a look at names that, like Tesla, are both the last name of a well-known electrical scientist or inventor, and also the name of an official electrical unit of measurement. You can see a full list of units in this article on International System of Units. Scroll down to the table SI derived units. I have reduced the set below to include only names with an electrical relationship.
The data in the table is as follows:
Electric Vehicle Market Projections
Clearly the electric vehicle market is experiencing dramatic growth. Vantage Market Research estimates that the electric vehicle market, currently at about $193 billion revenue per year, will grow to more than $693 billion per year by 2030, a growth rate of 17.3% CAGR.
Electric Charging Station Market
With electric auto manufacturing dominated by existing automotive manufacturers, there may be limited opportunities to tap directly into that with domain name sales.
The infrastructure around the change from internal combustion to electrified vehicles may be more lucrative, however. For example, MarketsAndMarkets estimate that globally the EV charging station market was about $11.9 billion in 2022, that is expected to grow to $76.9 billion by 2027, a CAGR of 45.0%.
Domain Name Sales with Term Electric
I looked at NameBio for sales that include the term electric. Here is the list of sales, ordered by descending price. The top sale was ElectricCar.com for $180,000 in 2020 at Sedo, followed by ElectricCompany.com for $85,000 at Uniregistry. ElectricWorld.com sold for. $80,000 at GoDaddy in 2021, while ElectricGuitars.com fetched $42,700 at Sedo back in 2009. There were 965 domain name sales with the word electric somewhere in the name, totalling $1.6 million.
Domain Name Sales with Term Electr+
I wondered if electric was too restrictive as the search term, as perhaps major sales involved terms like electronics, electro, electra, etc. Therefore, I did a new search simply requiring only electr anywhere in the name. Here are the results of that search. That search produced 1666 sales, $2.5 million dollar volume, for names including electr. The top sales were the same as on the other list, but this search also produced electra.co that sold for $50,000 in 2022 by @AbdulBasit.com.
Top Domain Name Sales Related to Charging
I next searched NameBio for sales related to charging, chargers, etc. I made the search names that include charg anywhere. While some results are clearly unrelated to charging, most of the top 20 do appear to be charging related. This search produced 451 sales with a dollar volume of $766 thousand when the search term is charg anywhere in the name. Here is a link to the results. The top sale was ChargePoint.com that sold for $80,000 at Sedo in 2012, followed by FreeCharge.com at $55,000 at SnapNames in 2011, and SuperCharging for $50,005 in 2021 at GoDaddy.
By the way, you can do topical searches on NameBio. On Category select Business, and then under Subcategory choose Electronics and Electrical or Energy.
Keep in mind that the majority of retail sales are not included in NameBio, and probably the majority of businesses will not choose a word with the product or service term as part of their name.
I think the rapidly growing electrical micromobility sector, ebikes, electric scooters and so on, may offer rich domain name opportunities. I will be covering that topic soon in the NamePros Blog.
You could not be a domain investor if electricity had not been invented. But are electrical terms a good idea as part of a domain name portfolio? We all know that the domain name Tesla.com sold for a lot. What about the names of other scientists and inventors from electrical fields, particularly those who had an official electrical unit named after them?
You have undoubtedly heard names such as Faraday, Edison, Franklin, Tesla, Watt and Joule, among others, but how do they fit into the story of the development of electricity?
A Short History of Electricity: Ancient Roots
The roots of electricity date back at least 2800 years. The ancient Greeks discovered what we now call static electricity, certain materials when rubbed together become charged. The Greek philosopher Thales performed early experiments in about 600 BCE.
Practical uses for electricity have existed for a long time too. For example, Ancient Egyptian writings mention using electric catfish from the Nile river to produce shocks for treating patients.
Even the storage of electricity in batteries is ancient, with the Baghdad battery dating to the first century AD. It is speculated it was used for medical purposes.
Who Was the First to Use the Term Electricity?
The term electricity is much newer, however, with Merriam-Webster suggesting a first use in 1646. William Gilbert, a UK physicist, is credited with initial use of the word electricity, although several others at the same time were responsible for quickly making the term popular.The term is based on the Greek word elektron which comes from Greek for amber, one of the substances commonly used in generating static electric charges.
Ben Franklin
So how does Ben Franklin come into this? The famous, and highly dangerous, kite experiment of June, 1752 showed that the tiny sparks of static electricity, known since the early Greeks, and atmospheric lightning, were the same phenomena, just on very different scales.
It turns out with delays in information sharing at that time, often several scientists independently discovered or proved phenomena. French scientist Thomas-François Dalibard actually carried out an experiment proving the nature of electricity about a month earlier than Franklin, on May 10, 1752. But that experiment was partly in response to a proposal from Franklin, so Franklin deserves credit even if he was not first to successfully carry out the experiment.
Static and Current Electricity; AC and DC Current
The electricity that powers your home is current, not static, electricity, and it is AC, alternating current, not DC, direct current, such as the types of currents provided by a dry cell or automotive battery. A current is simply a flow of electrical charges. The flow is all in one direction in DC, and alternating back and forth in AC.
Modern Battery and Unit Volt
So that brings us to Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist, who in 1800 produced a modern battery using zinc, copper and salt water, and thereby generated an electric current.
Electricity and Magnetism are Related
Michael Faraday, an English physicist, was the first to prove that magnetism and electricity were intimately connected. He showed that if you rapidly move a magnet in the space inside a coil of wire, an electric current can be briefly induced. This is the heart of the process that creates the electricity in power stations or generators.
Not much later, in about 1861, Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell elegantly described electromagnetic phenomena in four equations. To this day, Maxwell equations are considered among the most beautiful and important equations in science.
More Electrical Units
We should also mention two other James, James Watt and James Prescott Joule. Both had many inventions and contributions. In Joule’s case, he helped formulate the equivalence between different forms of energy, and the physics unit of energy is the Joule in his honour. The unit for power, the rate of energy production or use is the Watt, named in honour of James Watt. Your electrical company, at least in North America, probably charges you by the kilowatt-hour, a unit of energy, but they could more properly express it in joules.
The unit for electrical current, the Ampere or Amp, is named in honour of André-Marie Ampère, while the electrical energy potential per charge, the Volt, is named after Alessandro Volta.
The Current Wars: Edison and Westinghouse
It became clear by the late 1800s that electricity had massive commercial potential. That usually brings disputes, and this is no exception. In the 1880s and 1890s we saw the War of the Currents. On the one hand, inventor and businessman Thomas Edison pushed for electric utilities based on DC power, while engineer and businessman George Westinghouse push a rival AC system. The war was bitter with accusations, misrepresentation and more.
We all know that alternating current, AC, won out, with almost all homes and businesses powered by some form of AC. Why is that? Voltage, strictly speaking it is called electric potential difference, is a measure of the energy per charge. Different devices use different voltages. While it is easier to directly use DC, it turns out that it is much easier to efficiently transform between different voltages with AC, and in the end that was the deciding factor. It also is easier to convert AC to DC for devices, such as electronics, that operate from DC voltages.
Nikola Tesla
So who was Nikola Tesla? He was an inventor and electrical engineer, born in Serbia, although he lived much of his life in the USA. He worked at Westinghouse Electric, and many key patents including AC induction motors, polyphase AC electrical networks, and generators are his work. He also did early work in X-ray imaging, and several other areas. The unit for magnetic flux density is called the Tesla in his honour.
Electric Cars: Early Roots
When you think of electric cars, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a Tesla or some other current electric car. Electric cars have a very long history, however. There were numerous early attempts to make an electrified carriage, with the models produced by William Morrison in Iowa in about 1890 among the first successful ones. In 1900 electric vehicles made up one-third of all vehicles.
Then, with cheap gasoline and lack of attention to human-induced climate change, internal combustion engine vehicles dominated. However, now we are on a path to a world that will soon be dominated by electric vehicles. This article shows the growth of electric vehicles globally.
The Tesla Domain Name Sale
The effort, and long acquisition process, that Elon Musk took to secure the domain name Tesla.com is well known. James Iles has written up the key points in the case study Why Musk Acquired Tesla.com for $11 Million. What we now considered Tesla, at that time operated on TeslaMotors.com. With Tesla broadening into rooftop solar and power storage and conversion devices for homes, Musk wanted the name Tesla that did not box the company in the way that TeslaMotors.com did.
On the NamePros Blog, @James Iles interviewed Stuart Grossman, who held the name and ultimately sold it to Tesla. At that time, the exact price was covered by a NDA, so was not mentioned, but it was later revealed.
Domain Names and Electrical Units
The Tesla case is a well-established company seeking to upgrade their name, and is therefore not directly relevant to name acquisitions by startups in the electric sector. Also, the name had previously been successfully defended in an UDRP attempt, not from Tesla Motors but an unrelated company with the name Tesla. That helped to establish the domain name would need to be purchased to be obtained.
We are currently seeing significant expansion in electrified vehicles of all types. Has that translated into increased demand, and worth, of related domain names?
Let’s have a look at names that, like Tesla, are both the last name of a well-known electrical scientist or inventor, and also the name of an official electrical unit of measurement. You can see a full list of units in this article on International System of Units. Scroll down to the table SI derived units. I have reduced the set below to include only names with an electrical relationship.
| unit | meaning | active OCs | TLDs | related | .com status | “ “ Results (M) |
| Ampere | current | 1,259 | 137 | 9,289 | in use | 64.6 |
| Coulomb | charge | 142 | 50 | 547 | redirect, parked | 35.8 |
| Farad | capacitance | 95 | 66 | 4,200 | no lander | 6.9 |
| Henry | inductance | 24,103 | 282 | 44,092 | in use | 1780.0 |
| Hertz | frequency | 2,293 | 320 | 9,983 | in use | 72.4 |
| Joule | energy | 711 | 133 | 3,197 | parked | 53.1 |
| Ohm | resistance | 2,560 | 220 | 50,739 | no lander | 82.6 |
| Tesla | flux density | 2,698 | 586 | 42,202 | in use | 777.0 |
| Volt | potential | 3,097 | 309 | 73,650 | in use | 290.0 |
| Watt | power | 3,413 | 230 | 52,270 | in use | 238.0 |
| Weber | magnetic flux | 12,139 | 349 | 32,607 | in use | 334.0 |
The data in the table is as follows:
- Unit official name (note in some cases this is different than the scientist, e.g. volt and Volta, or farad and Faraday).
- Brief description of meaning.
- Number of active Open Corporates company and organization listings. Note this includes in addition to current names, also known as, and former names.
- Number of extensions the exact electrical term is registered, as obtained from DotDB.
- Number of related domain names registered, that is longer names that include this term. That information is also via DotDB.
- I tried to visit the .com of each name, to see the current status. For names without a lander, I also searched on Sedo and Afternic, without luck, to see if the name was for sale.
- Number of Google results when the term is placed in quotation marks, expressed in millions. Note this number varies somewhat with searcher and date of search, but these should provide valid ordering information on popularity of the different terms.
Electric Vehicle Market Projections
Clearly the electric vehicle market is experiencing dramatic growth. Vantage Market Research estimates that the electric vehicle market, currently at about $193 billion revenue per year, will grow to more than $693 billion per year by 2030, a growth rate of 17.3% CAGR.
Electric Charging Station Market
With electric auto manufacturing dominated by existing automotive manufacturers, there may be limited opportunities to tap directly into that with domain name sales.
The infrastructure around the change from internal combustion to electrified vehicles may be more lucrative, however. For example, MarketsAndMarkets estimate that globally the EV charging station market was about $11.9 billion in 2022, that is expected to grow to $76.9 billion by 2027, a CAGR of 45.0%.
Domain Name Sales with Term Electric
I looked at NameBio for sales that include the term electric. Here is the list of sales, ordered by descending price. The top sale was ElectricCar.com for $180,000 in 2020 at Sedo, followed by ElectricCompany.com for $85,000 at Uniregistry. ElectricWorld.com sold for. $80,000 at GoDaddy in 2021, while ElectricGuitars.com fetched $42,700 at Sedo back in 2009. There were 965 domain name sales with the word electric somewhere in the name, totalling $1.6 million.
Domain Name Sales with Term Electr+
I wondered if electric was too restrictive as the search term, as perhaps major sales involved terms like electronics, electro, electra, etc. Therefore, I did a new search simply requiring only electr anywhere in the name. Here are the results of that search. That search produced 1666 sales, $2.5 million dollar volume, for names including electr. The top sales were the same as on the other list, but this search also produced electra.co that sold for $50,000 in 2022 by @AbdulBasit.com.
Top Domain Name Sales Related to Charging
I next searched NameBio for sales related to charging, chargers, etc. I made the search names that include charg anywhere. While some results are clearly unrelated to charging, most of the top 20 do appear to be charging related. This search produced 451 sales with a dollar volume of $766 thousand when the search term is charg anywhere in the name. Here is a link to the results. The top sale was ChargePoint.com that sold for $80,000 at Sedo in 2012, followed by FreeCharge.com at $55,000 at SnapNames in 2011, and SuperCharging for $50,005 in 2021 at GoDaddy.
By the way, you can do topical searches on NameBio. On Category select Business, and then under Subcategory choose Electronics and Electrical or Energy.
Keep in mind that the majority of retail sales are not included in NameBio, and probably the majority of businesses will not choose a word with the product or service term as part of their name.
I think the rapidly growing electrical micromobility sector, ebikes, electric scooters and so on, may offer rich domain name opportunities. I will be covering that topic soon in the NamePros Blog.
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