Naming
The rest of this site explains the systems a name has to clear: domain registries, trademark registers, company registers and dispute procedures. This section is about the step before: coming up with names that will survive those checks, so you are choosing between workable options rather than defending a favourite that was never going to clear.
Run the cheap checks before anyone gets attached. The expensive part of naming is not the search fees. It is the weeks spent on a name the team loves before discovering it cannot be used. Every guide here moves a check earlier.
The process, in order
How to brainstorm names that survive a trademark search sets out the whole process. Frame the goods, markets and crowded vocabulary of your trade first. Generate widely, leaning towards invented and arbitrary words. Knock out candidates in batches using the free official registers. Test the survivors. Only then pay for a professional search on the final two or three. It draws on the distinctiveness spectrum to explain why some kinds of names clear far more often than others.
The dictation test checks whether people can spell a name they have only heard, and say a name they have only read. It explains how to run a test that reflects real referrals, the spelling patterns the checker on this site flags, and why sound matters in trademark law as well as marketing: aural similarity alone can be enough for a conflict.
Checking social handles covers a register with no rules of its own. Handles are first come, first served under each platform's terms, and there is no UDRP equivalent to get one back. The page explains what a taken handle tells you about the name, which fallback patterns work, and what platform trademark policies can and cannot do.
Then secure it
When a name has passed, the pre-commit checklist sets the order: trademark registers first, then the company register, then domains, then everything else, before the name goes on anything expensive. The compare tool lets you line up your shortlist side by side, and the checker runs the domain and dictation checks on any candidate.
If you meet unfamiliar terms along the way, the glossary defines the vocabulary used across the site and links to the page that covers each term.
All naming guides
- Brainstorming names that clearFrame, generate, knock out, test, then search properly
- The dictation testCan people spell what they hear and say what they read?
- Checking social handlesWhat a taken handle means, and fallback patterns that work
- The pre-commit checklistThe order that saves money
- GlossaryThe terms used across this site, defined
Published 2026-10-18. Process guidance for people choosing a name, not legal advice.