Check a name before you build a business on it
Paste a name you are considering. This runs the checks that can be answered honestly — what the name becomes as a domain, which registries hold it, what it will cost you to dictate down a phone line, and which words will stall a company incorporation — and tells you plainly where it cannot answer.
What this does and does not settle
Naming tools tend to answer the easy question loudly and the hard one not at all. Whether a string is registered is the easy question. Whether you can safely trade under it is the hard one, and the distance between those two is where naming goes wrong. This site is built around that distance.
| Check | Answered by | What it still does not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registration | RDAP, live, from the authoritative registry | Whether the registry will sell it to you, what a registered domain costs to acquire, or whether it is parked, in use, or in a redemption period |
| Name reduction | The same rules a registry applies | Whether the reduced form reads as something you did not intend |
| Dictation and spelling | Pattern checks, run here in your browser | How it lands in a language you do not speak — no automated check covers this |
| UK sensitive words | The Companies House categories | Whether your evidence will satisfy the relevant regulator |
| Trademarks | Nothing here. Deep links into the official registers | Everything — and that is deliberate. See below. |
A tool that searched trademark registers for your exact string and reported “no conflict found” would be worse than no tool at all. Trademark conflicts turn on whether an average consumer would be confused between two marks used on similar goods or services. That takes in near-identical spellings, names that sound alike, translations, and marks that are not registered anywhere but have been used in trade for years.
An exact-match search misses all of it, and hands you a clean bill of health you would be entitled to rely on. So this site does not issue one. It opens the right search on the right register and explains how to read what comes back. The long version.
The order that saves money
Most people check the domain first, fall in love with what is free, and discover the problem after the logo is drawn. The cheap order is the opposite of the fun one:
- Trademark registers first. A collision here is the only finding that can force you to stop trading under a name you have already built on. It is also the slowest to investigate and the one most worth paying someone for.
- Company name rules next. If the name cannot be incorporated in the jurisdiction you actually operate in, nothing downstream matters.
- Domains after that. Domains are the most replaceable part. A business with a strong name and an awkward domain is common. The reverse is not a business.
- Social handles last. They are the loudest constraint and the least consequential. Handles can be changed, bought, or worked around with a suffix.
Questions
The checker says a domain is unregistered. Can I buy it?
Probably, but not certainly. Unregistered in the registry means no record exists today. It does not mean a registrar will sell it to you at the standard price: some strings are held back by the registry as premium or reserved, some TLDs require you to qualify, and a domain released from a previous registration can be in a redemption window where only the former holder can act. Check with a registrar before you commit to the name.
A domain is registered but the site is blank. Is it really taken?
Yes, in the only sense that matters to you today. A large share of registered domains are parked, defensive registrations, or simply forgotten. Some are for sale and some are not, and finding out means approaching the holder. What you cannot do is use the domain because nothing appears to be there.
Why does this check ten TLDs and not a hundred?
Because a hundred results is noise. The set here covers the endings people actually type and the ones that carry conditions worth knowing about. If you have a specific ccTLD in mind, the local presence page is the one to read first — for several of them the question is not whether the string is free but whether you are allowed to hold it.
Do you store the names I check?
No. The lookup service receives the reduced label, queries the registries, returns the answer and keeps a cached copy of the registry result for a few hours so repeated checks do not hammer the registries. It does not record who asked. Your last search stays in your own browser so you are not retyping it, and you can decline even that.
Start here
- Why an exact-match search misses what mattersThe single most expensive misunderstanding in naming
- What a domain lookup actually tells youRegistered, available, parked, reserved — four different things
- The pre-commit checklistEverything to settle before the name goes on anything expensive
Checks and reference pages reviewed 2026-09-20. Information about naming, domains and trade marks, offered for general guidance. Not legal advice.