How to choose a business name — and lock down the domain and handles

A business name is one of the few decisions you make once and then repeat ten thousand times — on a sign, on invoices, out loud on the phone, in the web address you read to a customer at the counter. It is worth an afternoon of care, and most of that afternoon is not spent being creative. It is spent checking whether the name you love is actually free to use.

This is a guide to both halves: picking a name that will still fit in three years, and running it through the availability checks — domain, state registry, federal trademark, social handles — using the official tools rather than a paid “name generator.” Where a claim comes from an official source, we say so. Where the honest answer is “nobody has good data on this,” we say that too.

What makes a name easy to live with

Before you check availability, it helps to know what you are aiming for. Three qualities matter, and they are more practical than they sound.

Easy to say, and easy to spell after hearing it

The test that costs nothing: say the name out loud to someone and ask them to type it. If they hesitate — is it -ly or -lee, one word or two, a k or a c — that hesitation will follow the name forever. Every customer who hears it on the radio, from a friend, or over the phone has to get to your website on the first try. A clever respelling (“Kwik,” “Xpress,” “Lyfe”) feels distinctive on paper and quietly costs you traffic the moment someone types the obvious spelling and lands on a competitor. This one is our opinion, not a statistic — but it is the cheapest mistake to avoid.

Not so narrow that it boxes you in

The two traps here are geography and a single service. Dallas Dog Grooming is clear and findable — until you open a second location in Fort Worth, or move, or start offering boarding and daycare. Sarah's Cupcakes works beautifully until Sarah wants to sell coffee and wedding cakes too. Neither name is wrong; just know that a name describing exactly what you do today is a name you may have to abandon when the business grows. A slightly roomier name — a real word, a made-up word, your own name — travels better.

Distinctive enough to actually be findable

This is where naming meets trademark law, and the government has already done the thinking. The USPTO (official) ranks names from strong to weak: fanciful (invented words like Exxon), arbitrary (a real word unrelated to the product, like Apple for computers), and suggestive (Coppertone) are strong; descriptive names (that just describe what you sell) and genericones are weak. In the USPTO's words, “the stronger your trademark is, the more easily you can prevent others from using it,” while weak marks “can be difficult and costly for you to defend.”

The same quality that makes a name legally strong makes it findable online. A search for “Austin Plumbing” competes with every plumber in Austin; a distinctive name competes with no one, because it is yours. Strong and searchable are the same goal.

The availability gauntlet, step by step

A name is not “available” in one place — it is available (or not) in four separate systems that do not talk to each other. The Small Business Administration (official) frames it as four different kinds of name registration: your entity name (protected at the state level), your trademark (protected nationally), your DBA or trade name, and your domain name. You can pass one check and fail another, so run all four before you print anything.

1. The domain, via a registrar or the neutral lookup

Start here, because the domain is the hardest to get and the easiest to check. Any registrar's search box will tell you if a name is taken, but registrar search results are designed to upsell you — they'll flag a name as “taken” and steer you to a pricier alternative. For a plain, unbiased answer to “is this exact domain registered,” ICANN Lookup (official) — run by the nonprofit that coordinates the domain system — shows the registration record with no sales pitch. What you pay, and the renewal price that matters more than the first year, is a separate question we cover in what a small business website actually costs.

2. Your state's business-name database

Every state runs a free business-entity search, usually on the Secretary of State's website, where you can see if your name is already taken by a registered company. If you'll operate under a name different from your legal one — a “doing business as,” also called a fictitious or trade name — most states require you to register that DBA, often with the state or your county. The rules and the fee vary by state, so the SBA's official guidance is to check with your own state and local offices. One thing worth knowing: as the SBA notes, registering a DBA “doesn't provide legal protection by itself.” It lets you operate under the name; it does not stop anyone else from using it.

3. A federal trademark search at the USPTO

This is the check people skip and later regret. A state registration or a domain does not clear you against someone's federal trademark — and a trademark holder can force you to rename, even after you've printed signs. The USPTO Trademark Search (official) lets you search the federal register for free. Note the tool changed recently: the old TESS system was retired on November 30, 2023 and replaced with a modern, cloud-based Trademark Search, so any tutorial telling you to “open TESS” is out of date.

You are not just looking for an identical name. The USPTO recommends a clearance search (official) for a likelihood of confusion — a similar name for related goods or services. “Cape Cod Coffee” can collide with “Cape Cod Cafe” if both sell drinks. If your name will carry real weight, this is the point to spend an hour, or a few hundred dollars on a trademark attorney, before you commit.

4. The social handles

Last, check the handles on the platforms you'll genuinely use — Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whichever fits your business. You do not need the same exact @handle everywhere; consistency is nice but not worth abandoning a good name over. It is more important that people can find you, which is mostly a Google problem, not an Instagram one — see how to show up on Google. Grab the handles you can, and move on.

The .com reality (and what to do when it's taken)

Here is the plain truth about domains: the good exact-match .com is very often already gone. At the end of 2025 there were about 161 million .com names registered, according to Verisign, the company that runs the .com registry. Two-word combinations of common English words were largely claimed years ago. This is not a reason to panic, and it is not a reason to pay a “domain broker” four figures for a name.

A .com is still the default people type and trust, so it's worth trying for. When the exact one is taken, in rough order of preference:

• Add a natural word. get, try, hq, your city, or your category — fogliecafe.com instead of foglie.com. Keep it spellable.
• Consider a modern extension like .co, .shop, or a location one, if it reads cleanly. These are legitimate now; just make sure it doesn't look like a typo of the .com next to it.
• Change the name, not just the domain. If the only free option is an awkward stretch, that is a signal the name is too crowded to be findable anyway. A slightly more distinctive name usually has a clean .com waiting.

One honest caveat on the numbers: you'll see articles quoting a precise percentage of “exact-match .coms that are taken” or a success rate for name choices. We could not trace those to any real dataset, so we won't repeat them. What is verifiable is the 161-million registration count — enough to know the popular names are gone, without pretending to a false precision.

Four mistakes that are expensive to undo

Stuffing keywords or your city into the name

“Best Affordable Austin Plumbing Repair” looks like it should help you rank on Google. It does the opposite, and it can get you suspended. Your Google Business Profile name (official) must be your real-world business name — the one on your storefront and signage. Google's guidelines are explicit that adding marketing taglines, location info, or promotional keywords “isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile.”

Copying a competitor

Naming yourself close to a successful competitor — “Jersey Mike's” next to “Jersey Joe's” — feels like borrowing their shine. In practice it makes you invisible (customers can't tell you apart) and exposed (if their name is trademarked, the similarity is exactly the likelihood of confusion the USPTO warns about). Be findably different, not confusingly similar.

Clever-but-unspellable spellings

We said it above; it earns its own line because it is so common. If a customer has to be told how to spell your name, you will lose some of them to whoever owns the obvious spelling. Save the wordplay for your tagline.

Skipping the trademark check

The most expensive mistake is the one you find out about last: a cease-and-desist after the sign is up and the cards are printed. A free USPTO search takes minutes. There is no version of this where checking first costs you more than checking never.

A short decision checklist

• Say it out loud and have someone spell it back. If they can't, keep looking.
• Ask if it still fits in three years — a new location, a second service, a move. Avoid pinning yourself to one city or one product unless you mean to.
• Check the domain at a registrar or ICANN Lookup. Try for the .com; accept a clean alternative if it's taken.
• Search your state's business registry for an existing company or DBA using the name.
• Run a USPTO trademark search for identical and confusingly similar names in your field. This is the one not to skip.
• Grab the handles you can on the platforms you'll use — without insisting they all match.
• Keep it clean on Google. Register and use your real name; never stuff keywords or your city into it.
• Then commit. Register the domain and, if the name matters, the entity or trademark — before you spend a dollar on signage.

A good name is not the cleverest one in the room. It is the one that is easy to say, free to use in all four systems, and roomy enough to grow into. Do the checks first, and you only have to name your business once.