Business Name Search

Every business formed in your state must have a unique business name. This name cannot be similar to any other business name in the state.

Typically, the following factors cannot be used to say your business name is different from another business name:

• Suffixes, such as Corporation, Company, Incorporated, Incorporation, Limited, Corp., Co., Inc., Ltd., LLC, etc.
• Definite articles like “A,” “And,” “An,” “&,” “The,” etc.
• The singular, plural or possessive forms of a word
• Abbreviations, punctuation, symbols, fonts, typefaces, etc.

The following rules typically apply across all states for naming a business:

• Your entity name needs to be unique and should not be similar to or confusable with another business name in the state.
• Your name must contain certain words, depending on the type of entity you’re creating.
  • If your entity is an LLC, it must contain the words “Limited Liability Company” or an abbreviation.
  • If your entity is a corporation, it must contain a word like “Incorporated” or “Corporation.”
• The name should not imply an association or connection with a state entity, agency or body.
• The name should not imply you are carrying out a service or business operations that you are not legally able to provide.

Additionally, most states will have other, more specific naming rules. You can find those on the individual state business name search pages above, or in our state-by-state guides to LLCs and corporations.

It’s easy: just use the Business Name Search Tool and enter your proposed LLC or corporation name. We’ll search the business name registry for your desired state and tell you if there are any matches. If not, good news — you can form a business with that name, and we’ll help you get started.

Most states allow you to conduct business under a different name. Depending on your state’s rules, this could be known as an “assumed name,” “fictitious name,” “doing business as name” or “trade name.” We can file your Fictitious Business Name with your state on your behalf.

You can file an amendment to your Articles of Incorporation or Articles of Organization with your state. We can take care of this and file the amendment on your behalf to change the name of your LLC or corporation.

We can help. We have a complete guide to choosing the right [state abbr] business name — you'll want to choose a name that will mean something to your customers, explain what you do, help people remember who you are, strengthen your brand and be unique to your vision.

Once you have filed and formed your business legally, nobody else can form a business with the same name in that state. If you want extra protection, you could consider registering your [state] business name as a trademark. Note that filing a fictitious or “doing business as" (DBA) name will not be sufficient to protect your business name.