Well first off, it can be done, and there's plenty of reasons for it.
Take the example of a site set up without thinking much about the name, to list the therapists in part of the US, www.findtherapist.com . Some might read as Find The Rapist, rather than Find Therapist.
Other businesses have had website names that are far too long to remember, too long to type without making a mistake, and maybe a bit long to fit on leaflets, side of the van etc.
www.johnmurphysroofcleaningandwindowwashingservice.ie is a bit of a monster (but not too far off of some site names I've seen!).
Say later, Mr Murphy wishes he had picked www.roofandwindows.ie. Well it's not too late to change! There is a bit of work involved in it, but it can be done fairly quickly if you have a small website and not a lot of links to worry about.
Firstly, DON'T just cancel the old name. Some people will still be going to it, and any old leaflets or business cards, etc will have the old name, rather than the new name.
Buy the new domain name (lets use the example of www.roofandwindows.ie) and get that name to point to the pages of your website.
Then set up a redirect to the new one. (e.g. if someone tries to open www.johnmurphysroofcleaningandwindowwashingservice.ie they will be redirected instead to www.roofandwindows.ie)
So, keep the old name around for a while, while you promote the new one, and in the meantime, if there are any other websites linking to your website, ask them to link to the new name. (Otherwise, when you finally stop paying for the old name, their links will be a dead end.)
Don't forget to re-submit the new name, new sitemap to search engines etc, and update robots.txt if necessary.
Don't forget to sort out your e-mail as well, if it's linked to the old domain name, get it forwarded for a while to the new one.
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