First, think about what the group is about and where you would look for such a group.

Second, see if the Topic you would look under is in the list. If it is, then it's easy to figure out what the name should be. If it isn't in the list, consider whether the Topic would be one others will be able to use in the future.

Example:

alt.discuss.wicca.serious was proposed and failed.
alt.discuss.religion.wicca passed. It was the first group to start the "religion" category, which has since been expanded upon.

What was the difference here? There were neither a Wicca nor a Religion Topic on the List. But Religion was a necessary Topic that had been sorely missing. It is a Topic that many other people will be able to use in the future. (The Christian groups all seem to be under the "god-talk" category, though some have been poposed and passed in the Religion category now.)

Example 2:
alt.discuss.menofwebtv was poorly named. With one single period it could have opened up a Topic that would have been useful for the full life of the alt.discuss groups. If it had been proposed as alt.discuss.men.ofwebtv numerous men's groups could have grown from that single Topic.

So, naming a group responsibly is of great benefit for the groups to come. Another reason to name a group with the hierarchy in mind is that poorly named groups get a large number of NO votes, based on the naming of it, and not on the proposed content of the group. It is much easier to pass a group that has been named with the hierarchy and the Topic List taken into consideration than one that has not.

A PERIOD is a seperator. Each time a period is used it creates another sub-category.

Example:
alt.discuss.entertainent (15 groups under this heading)
alt.discuss.entertainment.tv (5 groups)
alt.discuss.tv.cartoons (1 group)

Even the last one, alt.discuss.entertainment.tv.cartoons can, with another period, supply a whole section for more groups (ie: .simpsons, .spiderman, .king-of-the-hill, .southpark, .rug-rats, etc.).

A HYPHEN on the other hand, is a connector. It should only be used when there is a specefic reason to connect the words together.

Examples where it makes sense:
alt.discuss.arts.audio-video and
alt.discuss.entertainment.tv.red-dwarf
alt.discuss.music.heavy-metal

An Example where it does not make sense:
alt.discuss.webtv-tricks.and-help thus creating the Top Level webtv-tricks when there was already in existance a
webtv.tricks section.

Here is an even worse Example of the mis-use of the hyphen
alt.discuss.post-real-pictures-vid-caps-of-yourself-naked
Yes, this is a real alt.discuss group. I couldn't make up anything this bizarre.

#1 This group should have been placed within the alt.discuss.sex.e.vid-caps category. Any sexually related group is highly recommended to be proposed within the sex or sexy Main Topics.
#2 This has created a new Top Level Main Topic that will never be expanded upon.

The name of a group should NOT be a sentence. Sentence structure is very wrong here. The order of the words should be from broadest topic in the beginning, to the most specific at the end.

Example of a well named group:
alt.discuss.games.cards.magic
Games: a broad category
Cards: more specific, but still broad
Magic: the name of the specific role playing card game.

Examples of poorly ordered groups:
alt.discuss.musical-theater
Musical: this is the more specific of the two words, it belongs at the end
Theater: this could have opened up a whole new Main Topic of alt.discuss.theater which could have been used for .theater.acting, .theater.broadway ,theater.off-broadway, etc.

alt.discuss.beaniebabies.buy.sell.trade
Beaniebabies: should have been at the end, it is very specific
Buy.Sell: This could have gone under "forsale" which is an existing Topic
Trade: This also could have gone under "collecting" which was another existing Topic at the time.

So the beaniebabies group could have been placed under a few different topics, if the words had been rearranged or re-thought through.