14. Naming

Research current as of 2026-08-02. npm availability checked via the registry, domains via Vercel's domain API, collisions via web search.

This is market-collision research, not legal clearance. The USPTO register was not searched directly. Before printing anything or filing, a paid screening search is worth the few hundred dollars.

Two naming rules

Worth understanding, because they are different and Avelon follows both.

Package rule. One concrete English noun naming a metaphor for the job, never the job itself. A bailiff keeps order. An errand is sent elsewhere. A ward is kept under protection. Warm and slightly antique register: craft, nautical, astronomical, architectural. Two syllables, three at most. Never compound, never invented, never with "JS" in it.

Framework rule. Different. The umbrella is a borrowed proper noun from a place or a story. Melodic, invented-feeling, ends on a liquid consonant. That is why the framework name should sound nothing like the package names.

The practical consequence: only the umbrella name needs clearance. Once you own an npm scope, every sub-package name is free. @avelon/scrivener is yours the moment the scope is.

Finalists

Avelon (current working name)

Collision: Avelon, a building-automation software vendor listed on Capterra, GetApp, and SoftwareAdvice. Also Avelon PR. Risk medium: another company sells software under this exact name, which is the same goods class.

In its favor: it is Avalon, the isle where the wounded king is carried to rest and heal, so it carries the peace meaning. No other finalist is a place-name with that weight.

Corbel

Collision: Microsoft's Corbel typeface, shipped in Windows and Office. Risk low to medium: a typeface is a different goods class and nobody searching "corbel js" lands on a font, though Microsoft owns the unqualified term.

In its favor: the best metaphor of any candidate. A corbel is the bracket that lets you build outward from a wall someone else built, which is what this does to Next.js.

Laurel

Collision: laurel.ai, an AI timekeeping startup that raised a $100M Series C in 2025. Risk high. Actively building a software brand with the money to defend it, and it will own search results.

Ranking on clearance: Corbel, then Avelon, then Laurel.

Peace-symbolizing options

All verified free on npm as bare names.

Grith is the sleeper. One syllable, Anglo-Saxon, means exactly "the peace of a protected place," and nothing else in software uses it. It also gives the CLI a reason to exist: a reeve is the official who administered the grith.

Field notes

• Every short .dev domain is squatted. Plan on .sh, .build, or <name>js.com.
• Unscoped npm names are heavily squatted. Roughly one in six candidates was free.
• All three finalists' GitHub handles are taken by low-activity accounts. Not a blocker: use a

suffixed org handle, which is common for frameworks.

• Nearby invented names (paravel, ravel) are already taken on npm.
• Names rejected for collisions: Nala (npm taken plus three unrelated dev tools plus the Lion King),

Carrel, Carvel (ice cream), Corvel (CorVel Corporation, NASDAQ CRVL).

What changing the name costs

The npm scope (@avelon/*), the domain, the docs site, and the umbrella references in these docs. Nothing else. reeve, Scrivener, Ward, Errand, and Bailiff are independent of it, though the world-theme they sit in would shift: architectural under Corbel, Anglo-Saxon under Grith, Arthurian under Avelon.

Secure the npm scope and a GitHub org now. They are nearly free and they are the only assets that get harder to obtain over time.