Before the name goes on anything expensive

A name becomes costly to change the moment it is printed, incorporated, or indexed. Everything below is cheap while the name is still a candidate and expensive afterwards. Work down it in order; the order is the point.

1. Trademark registers — before anything else

• Search the distinctive element on the registers covering every market you will enter within about three years.
• Search a wildcard on that element, two or three plausible misspellings, and any homophone.
• Search the open web and the relevant company registers for the name as an unregistered trading name.
• Note anything live in a related trade. A plausibly relevant hit is a reason to investigate before committing — and the count is not the signal. One mark in your exact field matters more than five in unrelated trades on other continents.

This is first because it is the finding most likely to stop a business that is already trading. How to search so the result means something.

2. Company name — can you actually register it

• Check the name against the registry for the jurisdiction you will incorporate in, not the one you live in.
• Check it against that registry's restricted or sensitive word list.
• Check the “too like an existing name” rule, which strips punctuation and suffixes before comparing.
• If a word needs approval, find out who gives it and how long they take, before committing to a launch date.

3. Domains — after the two above

• Run the label through a live registry lookup.
• If the generic ending is taken, find out what is on it. Parked is survivable; a competitor is not.
• For any country-code ending, check eligibility separately from availability.
• Ask a registrar the price before assuming an unregistered name is standard-priced.
• Say the full domain aloud to someone who has not seen it, and have them type it.

4. The name in the world

• Say it down a phone line. Ask for it back, spelled.
• Have someone who speaks each of your target-market languages read it cold and say what it suggests.
• Search it as a plain web search. Read the first two pages for anything you would not want adjacent to your brand.
• Check the obvious social handles, last, and accept a suffix if you have to.

5. Only then

• Register the domain, including the generic ending if you can get it.
• Incorporate, or reserve the trade name.
• File the trademark application, in the classes reflecting what you will plausibly be doing in five years.
• Buy the handles.
• Commission the logo. Not before.

Questions

Related

• Run a name through the checksDomains, dictation and company-name flags in one pass
• Why an exact-match search is not a clearanceThe reasoning behind step one

Reviewed 2026-09-20. Reference material for people choosing a name; it is not legal advice.