Choosing a Limited Company Name can be daunting. There are a number of considerations when doing this. We will take you through the Marketing and the considerations regarding restrictions in this post.
The Process
Firstly, it is advisable not to start the process of marketing your business or to incur expenses relating to Marketing until you have secured your Limited company or have a plan to register a business name under that company. The latter of these two is very popular because if you don’t get the company name you require you can still trade with the brand you need. A limited company name is not secured until the limited company is incorporated. You can reserve the name online with us, and we will get a name reservation certificate, but this can be overruled by an agent in the companies registrations office if they feel it is too similar or even phonetically similar to an existing company in the register. This existing company may not even be active.
Choosing a company name
From a Marketing perspective the name you choose should be unique. The best way for you to get your name is to look at what’s available. Of course if you give us a call we can check the availability of the name you want. Feel free to use the checker on our homepage also. This is the name you will trade with. Trading with a Limited company name is always preferable but not the only approach. Our limited company is called Irish Formations Connect Limited. It trades as Irish Formations. We did this as there is a Dissolved company on the register called Irish Formations so we could not use this name. We added the work “Connect” to make the limited name unique.
Compliance with regulation
There are some regulations from the companies registrations office that need to also be considered. The use of the word “standard” is prohibited. If a name includes words which imply specific functions, e.g. “holding”, “group”, etc., further information may be required by the CRO. The words “University” and “Institute of Technology” or “Regional Technical College” cannot be used. Permission has to be sought from and granted by the Department of Education.
Words such as “insurance”, ”re-insurance” and “assurance” cannot be used. Prior permission has to be sought from and granted by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA). The word “society”, “co-op” or “co-operative” cannot be used unless permission has been sought from and granted by the Registrar of Friendly Societies.
It is generally recommended that company names include extra words so as to create a sufficient distinction between names. Certain words and their abbreviations together with accents and punctuation marks are not sufficient to distinguish between company names. Examples of such words include the definite article and the words “company”, “co”, “corporation”, “and”, “&”, “service”, “services” ,“limited”, etc. Place names are not considered to be a sufficient distinction between company names, e.g. Ireland, Dublin, West, etc.
Approving of Name
Particular care should be taken with names considered to have a distinctive element. The inclusion of qualifying words may not be sufficient to create a distinction between company names. Names which are phonetically and/or visually similar will be refused. This includes names where there is a slight variation in the spelling or the variation does not make a significant difference between the names.
If you need any advise on the registration of your name please don’t hesitate to contact us.