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Written by : Harlan Belski |
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hello and welcome i'm attorney thomas burton and today i'm going to show you how to see if your llc name is available now an llc also known as limited liability company is a great entity for many business owners forming a small business in their state i am an estate planning and business attorney licensed in wisconsin so i'm going to show you the process to see if your name is available in wisconsin but there is a process from what i am aware in almost all the states where you can form an llc all 50 states to search to see if the name is available before you file your application to form your llc so in wisconsin the department that handles these is the wisconsin department of financial institutions in many states it's the secretary of state's office so if you're looking for the government agency that handles llc's in your state i would google llc formation and the name of your state you could possibly put in secretary of state or also corporate name registry in your state but you want to go to the actual government website because that's where in wisconsin you can search for free and i believe most states now have moved to the online uh registration system so here on wdfi.org go to i want to search on the top left and then corporate records and you'll see that takes us right here to the search corporate records database and here you can search the legal entity name the date the entity type registered agent but you'll see right below it here in purple's name availability well it's purple for me it might be blue for you but if you just want to search the corporate records for the name availability this is the place to do it so let's go ahead and do a search here and i always suggest if you're working with your attorney or anyone else that you have three names in mind maybe your primary name and then a couple backups so i've done this before but badger best painting let's see if that's available in wisconsin and you can see it says no records appear to conflict with the name you entered although there appears to be no conflict final determination cannot be guaranteed so that exact phrase appears to be available but if you've watched some of my add your painting without the badge your best is already in use you see 2014 badger painting llc was formed in wisconsin and it's in appleton so you can't use badger painting and i'll just do one more example here in wisconsin the badger state badger is popular so if you search for bad day you can also see the badger company has already been taken but a less popular name like let's say john smith anything dad smith is popular but there appears to be no one no entity named john smith painting llc now that's the name you might want to go back to this or go to this advanced search where you can search by not just the exact phrase but using all of the words so you know before you are certain the name is available do some different searches like that one i just did there using all of the words that would be helpful because you can see what's out there for badger painting if you're considering using this name we've got a badger painting llc a badger painting comma llc but that was dissolved in 2017 badger custom painting badge of painting contractors badger state painting so that would give you an idea of if i'm looking to form my entity and call it badger painting what's out there because part of this is thinking about competitors as well if you're near any of these businesses like boomerang badger painting is in madison uh you might be advertising in their market and just not want a google search for their website to go uh someone searching for you to go to their website vice versa likelihood of confusion so think about that with your branding so part of this is legal what can you actually name the company and you can only name it a company that isn't in use now some of these that have been dissolved it's possible the department now would give you that name but just the caution i would consider whether you want a name some companies have bad publicity associated with them and so if it was recently dissolved like 2019 they might be gonna reinstate it by filing the fees or you know it could have on the internet some negative connotations and you don't want that associated with your new business if that's not really you so that's one example let's just try one more wisconsin painting here another popular name in wisconsin so you can see all the versions of wisconsin painting wisconsin's painting here someone has it in 2019 and there's different versions here bulldog central wisconsin so you can look through these and decide what you want to name yours now this is just using a popular name you can be creative and think out of the box when coming up with your name and that's how many great brands came up with their name and always can add words so you know you can do north west wisconsin painting especially if you're a regional basis and that looks available similarly badger painting might be taken but you could do northwest bad days so think about your brand where you want to operate things like that now in terms of the llc you don't have to name it if it's for a different type of entity and it you want it to be private not have anything to do with your brand you can just name it whatever you want you know you can name it bucky well that's a brand but let's say there's some uh your cabin is on forest road and you want to use that as the llc so look here's forest lake road so you can't use that but forest road llc might be available it looks like from this because if we just go back to the exact phrase there's no results so in general i wanted to show you how do you get to it and again i'll just run through from the home page here go to i want to search corporate records and then name availability to see if the name you're thinking about is available and if you're working with an attorney they'll run this search for you but before you meet with them it's a good idea to have your list down to top two or three names that you think would work and give it to them even if you did your search online and such and let them run a search as well make sure it appears to be available and then the final decision is up to the department of financial institutions when they examine your application your articles of organization you're proposing to file to determine if it's available but it's a lot better to just pick a name that's available before you submit and submit the articles using a name already in use as i showed you because then the department just has to inform you it's not available based on those grounds so i hope this video has been helpful to you as you think about forming your own llc if it has consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel so more people can see and benefit from this information as well thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time
Thanks for your comment Jorge Nethercutt, have a nice day.
- Harlan Belski, Staff Member
so you've picked the perfect name for your business and now you're ready to create your brand and kick off your marketing campaigns not so fast have you even checked that you are legally allowed to use the name is another business already using the name will the name land you in hot water by infringing on a registered trademark and is the dot-com domain name available for your website as you can see picking a business name isn't as easy as putting a few catchy words together so with that in mind let's run through a few things you need to check before you start branding your business and finding your first clients coming up with the perfect name for your business is not easy first you need to get your creative juices flowing and try to come up with a name that is unique memorable and on brand if you've been through this process and you already have a name in mind for your business great you can move on to the next steps if not and you're still trying to come up with a name check out our video on how to come up with your perfect business name where you'll find a bunch of great ideas to help you through the creative process a link to the video is in the description below okay so once you've got a name in mind for your business there are a few things you need to check to make sure you are legally allowed to use the name and that it's fully available for you to use in every way you need to let's talk about the legal side first wherever you are in the world there will be rules about what you can and cannot use as a name for your business now we can't cover all the rules in every part of the world in this video so here is some general information usually if you want to use your personal legal name which is just your own name for your business name you are allowed to do so without registering the name with a government agency so if your name is jane smith and you run a bookkeeping business and call your business jane smith you may not need to register the name because it is exactly the same as your personal legal name if however you call your business jane smith bookkeeping you will most likely need to register the name with your local authority because by adding in the word bookkeeping the name of your business is no longer exactly the same as your personal legal name now before you go ahead and actually register the name you need to check whether it is already taken by another business the easiest way to do this is to find an online tool that allows you to check the availability of business names in your area here in australia that tool is found on the asic.gov.au website simply type in the name you want to use for your business and check the results if you are not in australia type something like check business name availability into google and find the tool provided by your local government authority wherever you are in the world it should be a free tool so you shouldn't have to pay a fee to do the search if you're lucky and your chosen business name is available you can go ahead and check a few more things one of those things is to check whether your chosen business name is potentially going to infringe on a registered trademark if you infringe on a trademark you may end up being sued and at the very least be forced to change the name of your business so how can you avoid this first go to google and type in something like check trademark or trademark search you should find a tool that allows you to search for registered trademarks in your part of the world as you can see jane smith bookkeeping appears to be ok to use as a business name in australia but if you were to name your business swoosh for example you might infringe on a trademark registered by nike that leads us to the second thing you can do to avoid any legal trouble over trademarks use common sense naturally if you're going to give your business a name that is similar to a popular brand name you are probably going to hear from a lawyer so do yourself a favor and try to think of a business name that won't land you in hot water so now that we've checked the legal side of things we just have two more things to check one whether the domain name is available and two whether the social media handles are available if you want to use a certain domain name for your business you need to check whether it's available this is easy to do simply go to google and type in check domain availability and you will find lots of tools in the results all you need to do is type the domain name you want to use into one of the tools and it will check to see whether the com and other versions of the domain are available if you want to use the dot com and it's not available you may need to choose a different name for your business on the other hand if you are happy to use a different extension such as me or dot id you can do that instead also you may want to consider using a country specific extension such as dot co dot uk if you live in the united kingdom or dot com dot a u if you are in australia it's up to you to decide what domain name you want to choose for your business just keep in mind that dot com domains are often already taken so they are hard to come by the final thing to check is whether the handles are available for any social media accounts you want to use for example if you want to use twitter or instagram to market your business go to namechecker.com or brandsnag.com and see if your chosen business name is available on the social media platforms you want to use okay you're nearly at the end now and it's been quite a journey you've been through the creative process done your legal checks and made sure you can get the domain name and social media accounts you want now all you need to do is actually register your business name similar to the legal checks the exact process you need to go through to register your business name depends on where you are for example if you're in australia you would register your name online through business.gov.eu if you're not in australia simply google how to register a business name and you should easily find a link to your local government authority for legally registering your chosen business name just follow the process pay the fee and the name will be yours you can now move on to branding your business and kicking off your marketing campaigns and speaking of branding be sure to check out our videos on how you can create a free logo for your business ready to use on your website social media accounts and other marketing material check out the links in the description below to find out how to create your ideal logo for free in just a few minutes
Thanks prozreti5 your participation is very much appreciated
- Harlan Belski
About the author
I've studied doxastic logic at Clarkson College in Omaha and I am an expert in hydrogenation. I usually feel indifferent. My previous job was bridge and lock tenders I held this position for 26 years, I love talking about vacation and trampolining. Huge fan of Hanna Hall I practice horse riding and collect records.
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