Branding
Five checks before you commit to a company name
A name that fails a trademark search after launch is the most expensive kind of design revision. Twenty minutes of checking prevents it.
Naming is treated as the creative part and the checks are treated as admin. It is the other way round. The checks decide whether the creative work was worth anything, and they take an afternoon.
1. Trademark registers
Search the register that covers where you will trade. For Germany that is the DPMA; for the EU, EUIPO; for Canada, the CIPO database. Search the exact name, obvious misspellings, and the same word in the classes you will operate in. A registered mark in your class in your market is a stop sign, not a negotiation.
2. The commercial register and business name rules
If you are forming a company in Germany, the name has to be distinguishable from existing entries at the same Registergericht, and it has to carry the correct legal form suffix. The local chamber of commerce (IHK) will do a preliminary check for you, usually free, and it is worth doing before a notary appointment rather than during one.
3. Domains, including the ones you do not want
Check the .com and your country domain — .de, .ca — plus the obvious typos. If the .com is parked at €30,000, decide now whether you can live with that. Many good businesses run happily on a country domain; few run happily on a domain with a hyphen in the middle.
4. Handles and existing usage
Check the same string on LinkedIn, Instagram and wherever your audience actually is. Then search the plain word in your target languages. A name that is fine in English and unfortunate in German is a problem you only find by asking a native speaker, and it is much cheaper to ask before the sign is made.
5. Say it out loud on a bad phone line
Spell it to someone who has never seen it. If they need it spelled twice, every future customer will too. This eliminates more clever names than any other test, which is usually a mercy.
What actually makes a name work
Not cleverness. Distinctiveness, pronounceability and room to grow. A descriptive name is easy to understand and almost impossible to protect; an invented name is protectable and needs marketing behind it. Most good choices sit between the two: a real word used in an unexpected place.
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