Naming a business is the step people lose whole weekends to. It feels enormous — it’s the word on your invoices, your domain, your Instagram handle — and yet the actual rules take ten minutes to learn. This is the practical guide to how to name a business in the UK: the Companies House name rules that decide what you’re allowed to register, the four checks that tell you whether a name is really available, and a handful of formulas for generating business name ideas that still sound good in year three. Everything below was verified against gov.uk on 7 August 2026.
Companies House name rules (if you’re forming a limited company)
If you’re registering a limited company, your name has to clear Companies House. The rules, from the official guidance:
- It must end in “Limited” or “Ltd” (or the Welsh “Cyfyngedig”/“Cyf” if your registered office is in Wales). That’s the registered name — you don’t have to put “Ltd” on your shop sign, as we’ll get to.
- It can’t be the “same as” an existing registered name. Companies House ignores punctuation, special characters and trivially similar words when comparing — their own example is that “Hands UK Ltd” and “Hand’s Ltd” both count as the same as “Hands Ltd”. Adding an apostrophe or a “UK” doesn’t make a taken name available.
- It can’t be “too like” an existing name — and this one can bite after registration. If someone complains, Companies House can order you to change a name that sounds the same even when it’s spelled differently: their example is “Easy Electrics For You Ltd” versus “EZ Electrix 4U Ltd”. Creative spelling is not a loophole.
- It can’t be offensive, and it can’t suggest a connection with government or public authorities without permission.
- Sensitive words need sign-off before you can register them. These are words that imply status or official backing. A few from the official list:
| Word | Who has to approve it |
|---|---|
| Royal | Cabinet Office (or the Welsh/Scottish Government, depending on where you’re based) — you need a letter of non-objection |
| British | The relevant government body if the name implies an official connection; otherwise you have to show genuine pre-eminence in your field |
| Chartered | Your professional body must confirm in writing that you’re authorised to use the title |
| Bank | Financial Conduct Authority — letter of non-objection |
| Accredited | Office for Product Safety and Standards (Department for Business and Trade) |
For a small online shop the practical takeaway is simple: skip the sensitive words entirely. “Royal Wharf Candles” sounds lovely and will stall your incorporation while you write to the Cabinet Office.
One more distinction that saves a lot of confusion: your registered name and your trading name don’t have to match. You can register “Bramble Retail Ltd” at Companies House and trade as “Bramble & Fern”. A trading name can’t include “Limited”, “Ltd”, “LLP” or “plc”, and the sensitive-words rules still apply — but it’s how plenty of shops keep a clean brand while the boring legal name sits on the paperwork.
Sole traders: trading names, not registered names
If you’re a sole trader, there is no register of business names at all. You trade under your own name, or under a trading name you simply start using. The gov.uk rules are short: the name must not include “limited”, “Ltd”, “LLP”, “public limited company” or “plc”; it must not be offensive; and it must not be too similar to someone else’s trade mark, because they can make you change it. You do have to put your own name and the business name on official paperwork like invoices and letters — “Sarah Okafor trading as Marlow Prints” is the standard format.
The flip side of no register: nobody can reserve a sole trader name, including you. If protecting the name matters, a trade mark is the only real lock. Not sure which structure you’re trading under yet? That decision comes first — our guide to sole trader vs limited company walks through it.
How to check business name availability in the UK: the four-check sweep
A name isn’t “available” because one search came back clean. Four different systems can block you, and they don’t talk to each other. Run all four — it takes about fifteen minutes.
- Companies House register. Use the official official company name availability checker on gov.uk. Forming a company? This is pass/fail. Staying a sole trader? Check anyway — trading under a name someone has registered as a company invites a dispute you’ll lose.
- UK trade mark search. Search the Intellectual Property Office register via gov.uk/search-for-trademark — you can search by keyword, phrase or image. This is the check people skip, and it’s the most dangerous one: registering a company name gives you no defence against an existing trade mark in your category. Look for similar marks in your class of goods, not just exact matches.
- The domain. Check the .co.uk and the .com. If the exact .co.uk is free, that’s a genuine point in the name’s favour; if it’s parked or held by an active business, think hard before settling for a hyphenated variant customers will never type correctly.
- Social handles and marketplaces. Instagram and TikTok handles, plus the shop name on Amazon, eBay and Etsy if you plan to sell there. Mismatched handles (“@brambleandfern_uk_shop”) make a brand look improvised.
A note on business name generators: fine for sparks, useless as verdicts. Whatever a generator suggests still has to survive all four checks above — most suggestions don’t.
What makes a name sell online
Legal and available is the floor. For an online shop the name also has to work as a spoken word, a typed URL and a brand that survives your second product line:
- Sayable. The pub test: can someone recommend it out loud without explaining it? Word of mouth is your cheapest channel.
- Spellable from hearing it once. “Kwik”, “Xpress” and dropped vowels mean a percentage of your word-of-mouth traffic lands on someone else’s site forever.
- Not boxed into one product. “Sarah’s Soy Candles” is a problem the day you add wax melts, and a bigger one when you add ceramics. Name the feeling or the world, not the SKU.
- Short enough for a logo, a handle and a label.
- The .co.uk as tie-breaker. Between two names you like equally, take the one with the exact domain free.
This matters more than it used to because the name now gets deployed everywhere at once. When you open a store on Orbit (we build Orbit, so read accordingly), setup asks for your domain and your brand tokens — logo, colours — once, and pushes them through the storefront, checkout and order emails automatically. A name that’s clean and short makes every one of those surfaces easier; the full walkthrough is in our guide to starting an online store in the UK.
Business name ideas: five naming formulas that work
Staring at a blank page is the wrong way to generate business name ideas. Run your trade through these five formulas instead — worked here for an imaginary candle business:
- Founder + trade. “Fletcher & Sons Candles”. Warm and trustworthy; harder to sell the business later because the name is you.
- Two concrete nouns. “Fox & Bramble”, “Wick & Fern”. Very brandable — but common pairings are heavily taken, so expect to add a third element to clear the four checks.
- Place + trade. “Whitby Candle Co.”, “Camden Wax Works”. A gift for local search and instantly evocative; you’re tied to the place, which matters less than people fear for an online shop.
- Invented or altered word. “Emberly”, “Souffra”. Clears availability checks easily and trademarks cleanly; costs more effort to load with meaning because it starts with none.
- Descriptive with a twist. “Plainly Good Candles”, “Burn Slowly”. Says what you do while still sounding like a brand.
The 10-minute decision process
- Minutes 1–3: longlist ten names — two per formula above. No judging yet.
- Minutes 4–5: the kill test. Say each aloud; cross out anything you’d have to spell for someone. Cross out anything that names a single product.
- Minutes 6–9: run the four-check sweep on your top three.
- Minute 10: of the survivors, pick the one with the exact .co.uk free. Done. A name is maybe 5% of whether the business works — your product, photos and first ten sales are the rest, so don’t spend a month here.
Then make it official: if you’re incorporating, the name is registered as part of company formation, and if you’re a sole trader you simply start using it — the registration steps for both routes are in our guide to registering a business to sell online in the UK.
Questions people ask us about naming a UK business
Can two UK businesses have the same name?
Two sole traders can legally use the same trading name, because there’s no register of trading names. Two limited companies can’t — Companies House blocks “same as” names and can order a change for “too like” names. And a registered trade mark beats both: whoever owns the mark in that category can force the other party to stop, whatever Companies House says.
Do I need to register my business name in the UK?
Sole traders don’t register a name anywhere — you just start trading under it (and put your own name plus the trading name on invoices and letters). Limited companies register their name automatically as part of incorporation at Companies House. Neither process protects the name as a brand; only a trade mark does that.
How much does it cost to trade mark a business name in the UK?
Registering a UK trade mark costs at least £205, rising with the number of classes of goods or services you cover (checked 7 August 2026 on gov.uk). Protection lasts 10 years and is renewable, and a straightforward application takes around 3 to 4 months to be granted. For most new shops it’s a year-two job, not a day-one job — but run the free search before you commit to the name.
Can I change my business name later?
Yes. A sole trader can switch trading names whenever they like. A limited company files a change of name with Companies House and keeps the same company number, so contracts and history carry over. The real cost of a rename is the brand equity, domain and reviews you’ve built — which is exactly why the four-check sweep is worth fifteen minutes now.
Got a name that cleared all four checks? Point it at a shop. Orbit’s 14-day free trial needs no card — you can have the name on a live storefront, with your domain and colours applied, this afternoon. Plans start at £25 a month on our pricing page.