Curious about how to name a business!
Deciding the name of your Start-up, Venture, or Business is a very crucial part for your brand. To ensure business name is in line with your vision and business operation is huge challenge in some scenarios.
For registering any form of business either registering a Federal corporation, Provincial corporation, Partnerships, Trade name, or Sole Proprietorship brand name plays a pivotal role in the business growth. To ensure best practice for the name and avoid any conflicts with existing businesses follow the steps below:
Distinctive and Descriptive terms:
The unique word or combination of made-up word is known as Distinctive element in the business name like ABC, Sam, or personal last name. Similarly, the word which reflects the kind of business or activities is Descriptive element like construction, wholesale, consulting services etc.
Business name = Distinctive + Descriptive Word
Distinctive Word | Descriptive Word |
ABC corporation, Samuel, raw12345, or Personal Legal name (First name or Last name) | Construction, Consulting, Wholesale Trade, and Financial Services. |
Name Pre-Search:
Once the name is decided it is a mandatory to ensure there are conflicts with existing registered businesses a pre-search is required. This will provide you the list of all the matching businesses which will act as a potential conflict and the list of trademarks. Based on this report update your selected name to ensure its free from any conflicts if there is any.
NUANs Report/Name Approval:
This is the final step, in some provinces like Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, we need a NUANs report which is of 7 pages and contains a reference number required to provide at the time of business registration. NUANs report is valid for 90 days from the date of generation. For jurisdictions like Federal, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, we need a name approval which has a confirmation number required to provide at the time of incorporation.