What are the rules for permissible names on google app engine?

Question

When I create a new application, and I am choosing a name, most common dictionary words appear to be unavailable, along with even some of the more esoteric ones including 'aaaaaa' (I've tried variable length, and different letters).

However, most of these applications don't actually seem to exist. So either all of these names have been taken, but none of these people have bothered to build even a hello world app on it, or there are additional naming rules that app engine enforces beyond

Application Identifier must be between 6 and 30 characters. Lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens are acceptable characters. Leading and trailing hyphens are prohibited.

I'd like to rule out the later -- are there any additional naming rules that GAE imposes?

Answer 1

From this old thread it appears the namespace competes with gmail (!), explaining so many reserved. Also suggests trying a string + number. Also appears the name not so important since you can map to your own domain.

http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse_thread/thread/ee730f76360a3843

Answer 2

I wasn't able to create an application until I created a 30-character string of gibberish including dashes, numbers and letters. I tried creating a long string of gibberish followed by a small recognizable bit, to no avail.

As in gmail and other G-Stuff there is a lot of squatting, bots and other things taking up space, for no good reason. Unfortunately G seems to have no inclination to resolve this.