by ScamperBranding - 16/07/2009

When you are starting up a new business or a new brand of any kind, it is essential that you choose the right name, but the brand naming process is not as simple as just finding a great sounding name – you need to make sure that it is actually available.

A hundred years ago there were relatively few brands on the market and creating a new one was a fairly straightforward process. However, we’re now in an extremely competitive global market place of branded goods and finding a brand name that isn’t already in use that you can rightfully use as your trademark is becoming increasingly difficult.

Before you go too far down the line of selecting your brand name, designing your logo and printing all of your branded materials, you really should do a few basic checks to make sure that your new name isn’t already being used by someone else:

1. Google – It’s the easiest starting point for a brand name search and can rule out many potential names in just a few seconds. Search for different variations of the name including different spellings and try including relevant descriptors (e.g. don’t just search for Lotus, search for Lotus Cars, Lotus Vehicles, Lotus Engineering etc)

2. Business Registrations – Check government records to see if any other businesses are registered with the same or similar names. In the UK, you can do this easily online at Companies House: http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/46510b460374ca4a0d7aff59b78786c3/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

3. Trademarks – Make sure that the name isn’t already trademarked for similar types of goods and services in the countries that you intend to trade. You can do a simple search of UK and EU trademarks at http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ and US trademarks at http://www.uspto.gov/ . If you’re unsure, take the advice of a qualified trademark attorney.

4. Domain Names – If the web is going to be an important part of your business then you need to make sure that you can get a suitable domain name. If you’re a web only business then you might well feel that it is essential that you have www.yourname.com, in which case you’ll need to be very creative to find something catchy that is still available. It’s always worth considering using a descriptors such as www.yournamedescriptor.com or www.yourname-descriptor.com. It makes finding an available domain much easier, and a good descriptor could even help your search engine ranking. Also, if you’re trading only in a specific country then using the domain extension for your country such as .co.uk or .fr could make it easier to find an available domain, and also help you target customers in your country more effectively.

All of these checks can be done online so it is worth investing some time in the process, or hire a good brand naming agency to make sure that your name really is as good as it sounds, and is not going to become an expensive mistake in the long term.

One last thing, if you do find that your chosen name is already in use, it doesn’t mean that you should necessarily rule it out as your brand name. Perhaps it’s in use for a completely different type of business or perhaps it’s used only in the country that you have no intention of trading. Every case is different, so just do your research, think it through carefully and if in doubt, take professional advice.