I am starting a new company and I want to name it INCOMPRA, INC. How
do I find out if this word means anything negative in any other
languages? I made the word up from three english words..INtention,
COMmitment, and PRActice.

Hi there,

First of all, a Google search for the whole word can assure you that
your name is unique and will not cause problems in other languages:

Google has "incompra" appearing on just 3 web pages:

http://www.zan-zar-bikini.com.br/incompra.htm
(only appears in the file name of the page)

http://mail.ljudmila.org/pipermail/ 7-11/2002-March/002522.html
(incompra.partments - whatever that means)

http://www.spell-termles.ladinia.net/documents/ gramatica_LS_2001.pdf
(mentioned once in an article on Latin grammar)

The other aspect is if the word can be broken into pieces. The obvious
is "in compra" and a Google search for that phrase finds 267 web
pages, so it obviously means something or is a common mispelling.

Most of the pages are in Portuguese or Italian, so I looked up some
online dictionaries:

Portuguese: in purchase
Italian: it buys

Babylon have a tool that lets you search all of their 1600
dictionaries at once, and it found nothing for incompra and this for
compra:

Babylon Italian-English

compra 
n. purchase, something which has been purchased, act of purchasing, act of buying 

comprare 
v. buy, purchase, market; bribe, corrupt  
http://info.babylon.com/cgi-bin/info.cgi?word=compra&lang=&layout=df_new.html&n=10&cat=0&sort=


Google's index is huge (4.3 billion pages) and is the best tool for
determining if a word is in usage. I tried these variations as well:

incompre - appears in hyphenated versions of incompre-hensible
in compre - appears in hyphenated versions compre-hensive
encompra - name of a website, appears to be made up word like yours
http://www.encompra.com/

Babylon has "incomp" as an aviation term meaning incomplete:

Test Flight and Aircraft Airworthiness

INCOMP 
INCOMPLET 
http://info.babylon.com/cgi-bin/info.cgi?word=incomp&lang=&layout=df_new.html&n=10&cat=0&sort=

While "inco" is an acronym for several things:
http://info.babylon.com/cgi-bin/info.cgi?word=inco&lang=&layout=df_new.html&n=10&cat=0&sort=


Although there is always the potential for language and meaning to
evolve, I am confident that there are no negative connotations to your
proposed name in any language, unless the meaning of buying or
purchasing is inappropriate for your business.


Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

Thank you very much. You answer has helped me!

nice and thorough reply you got - however in addition i would consult
the book 'the 11 immutable laws of internet branding' by Al Ries. a
lot of it is on naming (not necessarily for the internet), and
important stuff too. it is a smallish book, and easy to read. i would
imagine there is a good chance you will think of something better
while reading it (an optimized variant perhaps).

good luck,
yuval