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Company name struggle and importance
I have been struggling for ages to come up with a company name.
Without giving names away (which is against the rules as far as I can see), how did you come up with your company name? How long did it take?
I often think of words I like the sound of and think it could work, but always stress that the decision of a company name is a very important one.
On the other hand I have come up with a couple of catchy ones, but then find they are registered already with Companies House.
It’s a one shot deal, it has to be right.
While on the subject, can anyone summerise the legality of using a duplicate name? One name I did come up with I popped in to google to see if it was current, and there is a website for it and a picture of their premises. I checked on Companies House, and it’s not been taken. Could I use it, or would I be subject to some sort of infringement?
Realistically, as the company is already established, and gets a great google position, I would be wasting my time competing against it, but was wondering what the law was on it out of interest more than anything else.
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10 Replies
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Daniel, from a legal point of view it depends to some extent on how you are set up. If you want a limited company name then you can’t use the same name as someone else it’s that simple. This is obviously all controlled through companies house.
If you are a sole trader then you can pretty much use any name you want without any come back legally. In fact you could have two companies in the same street with the same name from what I have been told & not much you can do about it.
If your a limited company you can still use pretty much any name you want but couldn’t put the Ltd at the end. You would also have to display somewhere that you were XYZ Ltd trading as blobby signs.
Some years ago I had a guy set up not to far away from me who used the same name, he was using my reputation to get work for himself & I was told that there was nothing I could do about it legally.
I ended up changing my name & just used my surname as I thought there was less chance of someone copying that. This is obviously in Scotland but I don’t think English law is that different on these things.
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My company name just came to me. I’ve used the name of the road I am on, but is a play on words in a way, so it doesn’t restrict me to staying where I am.
My bank account and all credit accounts are made out to David hammond T/A company name.
I think reserving your domain name is the safest option. I have 3 domains all pointing to the same web address. I’ve included a .com, .co.uk domain for my web site, and I got a shorter .com which I use for my e-mail as its a right mouthful to spell out over the phone!
Also think logo. How you want your business portrayed, maybe use a town/city name, or look at local history pick a relevant figure, event, something that sticks in the customers mind.
Calling your company Simple Signs screams that they’re poor, basic signs.
Call it Simply signs says you only do signsI’d suggest you get a few names together and play with some logo design, picking your favorite.
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be original or are you going to copy there designs as well. not meant to be blunt, they may even have a bad name.
stand on your own -
Thanks David. Some useful info, but leaves me more confused 🙂
I wanted to use my initials, this is what was already used and popular on google, so would be a waste of time for people who wanted to search for me. Could add my town/county on the end but just looks messy to me.
The so and so trading as XYZ is interesting. It’s something I need to really look into.
I think it needs signs in there somewhere really. I see some companies call themselves XYZ graphics, and designs etc. Not sure I would want to be that vague.
The more I think about my original initial name (not as obvious as DW, so this isn’t advertising) the more I think should I be worried about people not finding me in particular on google. They would presumably have my business card or my web address itself, and if they googled my name and found the branch hundreds of miles away then it’s obvious it’s not me so they may add my town to the end and find it that way. It’s more of a local word of mouth thing rather than relying on Internet hits anyway.
Ahhhh. Such a big decision to make 😳
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quote Chris Wool:be original or are you going to copy there designs as well. not meant to be blunt, they may even have a bad name.
stand on your ownThe company in mention is my 3 initials, so I’m not copying them to be lazy 😀
Maybe I should get the wife involved and pinch half her name and make something intersting. I like how Alan Sugar created AMS Trading and then worked it into Amstrad. My name sucks.
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David there is a problem picking a name using an event, local figure or anything else along those lines and that is that everyone else does the same thing, to give you an example when I started out on my own I decided on Kingdom Signs as I lived & worked in the Kingdom of Fife. At that time there were not a lot of other companies using a similar name so I was pretty happy with what I had done.
Someone else started using the same name as I mentioned above & I ended up changing my name to something that I felt wouldn’t be copied. One of the other reasons I felt it best to change the name was by then there were also a lot of other companies using Kingdom in their name which makes you a lot less memorable & just another company who couldn’t think of an original name :lol1: :lol1:Not sure that calling the company just something signs is a bad idea either especially as Daniel is just starting out and probably will only be selling signs. You on the other hand took over a business that was already a printers as well as a sign shop.
The name is the most important thing in my opinion, don’t worry to much about the logo to begin with. If your new to this you will probably find that in a year or so you will think your early designs suck & want to redo your own logo anyway. Unless of course you are already a whiz at design. Mind you in that case you should be able to design a good logo no matter what name you decide on.
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I think naming your company ABC Signs or using any type of initial is limiting.
My company name has my first name in it.
It’s not called Jill’s Signs but supposedly there’s another (or was) sign company using that name about 20 miles away.
I registered my business name with the state (actually I live in a commonwealth) to make it all legal.
The most clever sign company name I ever heard of belongs to my friend Jeff Lang. It’s called Olde Lang Signs.
😀
I would see if "Danny Boy" is taken. Or if you wanna sound all rustic "Dan’l"
Like in Daniel Boone, although he’s probably not real famous in your neck of the woods. Or something like Warren Sign Works.
Catchy names are OK as long as they use your own name so people remember YOU.
There must be a million Vital Signs, no offense to anyone who’s using that name.
Love….Jill -
Thanks Jill.
Warren Signs was a top contender, and isn’t actually registered with companies house.
Catchy numbers I liked were ‘Sign/signs of the times’ and ‘Sign language’. Again, both taken an was under the impression they couldn’t be used.
A friend has started to name me ‘Dan’s Decals’ but that is too limiting.
I don’t know enough about what I do and don’t need to do. I need to talk to business link really to see what I should set up as, and how the decision I make affects future change. I don’t want to start up using a common name and then grow to have to change it.
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Hi Warren
If your prefered name has gone, just add (your town name) in brackets to it.
Thats what we did.
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Speak to link first Daniel, sort out what you feel is best for you, you can either set up as a Limited Company, Partnership or as a sole trader. There are advantages & disadvantages to each which Business Link will be able to explain to you.
Once you know how you want to set up then you can go from there.
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