As of today, there are 106,511,654 top level domains registered. Those top level domains include .Com, .Net, .Org, .Info, .Biz, and .Us. Chances are the exact domain name you have in mind may already be registered. To help you find an alternative domain name, turn to domain name suggestion or domain name spinner sites.

I recently asked the members of my social network on Linkedin and Twitter what domain name generating site they preferred, and I received several responses, the favorite was Nameboy.com. Although Nameboy.com does offer many features and options to help you brainstorm that perfect domain name for your blog or affiliate site, it’s not the only game in town. Choices range from sites that generate a random short list of available names to a site that produces several lists based on keyword themes.

Following is a list of ten domain suggestion sites offering domain name generating or spinning features:

1. Makewords.com

This site offers a random name generator that can produce random domain names in 27 languages including Klingon.  Not much use if you have a keyword phrase you want to target, but it might be useful for those Web 2.0 sites.

Generating names on this site is done by choosing a wordlist, entering a keyword, and clicking on Search button.  Wordlists are built around a theme such, emotions, entertainment, actions, and shopping to name a few.  You can only choose one domain extension at a time, and I did find a few domain names that the site indicated were available, but when I clicked through to purchase them on Godaddy.com, they were already registered.

Using the example keywords of hockey and equipment produced available domains such as hockeyequipmentcatalog.com and hockeyequipmentshop.com, perfect for an affiliate or e-commerce site.  The site generated the domain names hockeyequipmentcompare.com and hockeyequipmentcritique.com, ideal for a hockey equipment review site or blog.

In addition to the wordlists programmed into the site, you can also add a wordlist of your own after you register for a username and log in.

Another feature is a bulk name check using a list of words that you cangenerate from the Google adwords tool and paste into a query box.

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2. Nameboy.com

The site allows you to enter a primary word and an optional secondary word to generate available domain names. Options include add a hyphen and chosing a domain name that rhymes with the keyword.  Using the example generic keywords of “hockey” and “equipment” yielded seven pages of available domain names. Some on target if you wanted to have both of those phrases in your domain name, others were odd suggestions such as “phieldgameapparatus”.  The availability of the domain names are indicated on the site, so there is no need to check the name on a domain register’s site.

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3. Gi.net

Global Internet is a domain name registrar/web host/web design company.  Clicking on a link buried in the middle of the page just below the domain name lookup query form takes you to their domain name suggestion page.  Enter keywords and choose the preferred domain name length, and click on suggest.  The query I ran, resulted in 100 results with six domain extensions listed on one page.

Variations ran from using the exact keyword combination such as hockeyequipmentcompany.com to a variation using similar words such as allsportsequipment.com. You’ll need to sort through some odd combinations such as hockeyfarmequipment and cleaninghockeyeequipment.

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4. Namedroppers.com

Start your domain name search by entering keywords and choosing to have either registered and suggested domains, registered domains, or suggested domains.  Using the example keywords resulted in over 300 results.  The results showed eight different domain name extensions and are displayed 25 at a time.  Clicking on the domain name suggestion takes you to their domain name registration page to complete the purchase.  The domain suggestions were on par with the first three sites in this post.

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5. DomainTools.com

I visit the Domaintools.com site almost daily to look up domain name registration information, so I was surprised the site had a domain name suggestion tool.  I typically hit the site look up the whois info, and then I’m gone.

Clicking on the Suggestion tab turns the Whois query box into a domain name suggestion query.  Using the term hockeyequipment yielded 20 results.  If you want a list of 80 more, you’ll have to pay for the Silver Membership at a cost of $15.00 a month or $149.00 a year.  The 20 results did show the availability across six top level domain extensions which is helpful if the .COM name is taken and you would consider a TLD such as .US or .INFO.

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6. Regfly.com

Another domain name registrar/web host company with a domain name suggestion page.  Entering the example keywords returned what appeared to be three pages of results, but when I clicked on pages three and four, there were now results.  Overall 100 results were produced, most of them were not very appealing such as hockeypoolequipment.com and easyhockeyequipment.com. Five domain name extensions are shown.

One star for at least making an effort.

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7. Domainit.com

This suggestion site is part of the services offered by this domain name registrar.  Enter multiple keywords separated by a space and choose from choices that will effect the resulting list of domain names.  The similarity filter for example, returns domain names that combine similar words to the keywords entered in the query box.

Using the keywords examples of hockey and equipment returned 10 results.  With the filters in the default settings resulted in domain names such as, hockeyequipmenthq.com and nhlhockeyequipment.com

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8. Regfly.com

Another domain name registrar/web host company with domain name suggestion page.  Entering the example keywords returned what appeared to be three pages of results, but when I clicked on pages three and four, there were now results.  Overall 100 results were produced, most of them were not very appealing such as hockeypoolequipment.com and easyhockeyequipment.com. Five domain name extensions are shown.

One star for at least making an effort.

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9. Bustaname.com

Domain name searches start with entering a list of keywords that will be combined to construct domain name suggestions.  Combinations are created in the order that they are entered in the query box.  Using the example keywords, hockey, equipment, and catalog appeared in the first box was not combined to create the available domain name hockeyequipmentcatalog.com.  If you have an idea of the words that you want to combine to create a new domain name, this site will work for you.  For my needs, bustaname.com turned out to be a bust.

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10. Nametumbler.com

While the site’s promise of assisting you in creating huge lists of keyword-rich, generic domain names and checking their availability was appealing, the delivery of the promise was filled with frustrations.

I’m a big fan of Firefox and the Adblock Plus plug-in. Most sites work fine with this plug-in activated, but this one did not. I had to deactivate the plug-in to use the site, since they are using an iframe filled with a page from Godaddy.com to check the availability of the generated domain names. Even after deactivating the plug-in, the look-up box from the Godaddy.com site went blank when I entered the Captcha code.

I even tried copying and pasting using Internet Explorer and the form on the Godaddy site went blank after I entered the Captcha code.

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After reviewing these sites, I discovered that although my favorite site was returning some great domain names, I will visit another site to make sure no stone is left unturned in the quest of a perfect domain name. Which site do you prefer?