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legal, tax, or financial advice.
For legal, tax, or financial advice specific to your business needs, we encourage you to
consult with a licensed attorney and/or CPA in your state.
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In this video, we are going to teach you how to research and choose your desired LLC name.
The purpose of this video is to help you: avoid infringing upon someone else's name
rights, to help you differentiate your business name from existing entities, and make sure
your desired LLC name is available for use.
In order to make sure your desired LLC name is available for use, you will need to search
it against the existing organized entities on the State's online database.
We will first walk you through some requirements and restrictions and then later we will show
you how to perform your search.
Name requirements.
Your LLC name must end with the words "Limited Liability Company", or the abbreviations "L.L.C."
or "LLC".
Using the abbreviation "LLC" is the most common.
For example, Joe wants to start a company by the name "Joe's Landscaping Services".
Since he is forming an LLC, he must file under the name "Joe's Landscaping Services, LLC".
Again, using the abbreviation "LLC" (or the full word "Limited Liability Company") is
a requirement when forming an LLC.
Name restrictions.
Your LLC name cannot imply that it is a corporation.
You are not allowed to use the words "Corporation" or "Incorporated", or the abbreviations "Corp."
or "Inc." anywhere in your LLC name.
Let's look at our example again.
Since Joe wants to form an LLC, he cannot call his company "Joe's Landscaping Services,
Inc., LLC" or "Joe's Landscaping Services Incorporated, LLC".
Your desired LLC name must also be "distinguishable".
This means it cannot be too similar to the names of existing organized entities that
are found in the results during the search of the database.
We will now illustrate several examples of distinguishability, and we will provide examples
you may see while performing your search.
Differences in designators, which are the identifiers at the end of a business name.
do not create distinguishability.
Examples of designators would be "Inc." or "Corp." (for Corporations) and "LLC" or "L.L.C"
(for Limited Liability Companies).
There are other designators as well, but these are the most commonly used.
For example, your desired LLC name is "Smith Investments, LLC", but during the search of
the database let's say you found the business under the name "Smith Investments, Inc."
In this example, your desired LLC name would not be available for use.
You would have to think of an alternative name that is unique and different.
An example would be "Smith Financial Group, LLC".
Grammatical differences.
The following do not create distinguishability: differences and variables in singular, plural,
possessive forms of a word.
For example, your desired LLC name is "Apple Farm, LLC".
Let's just say during the search you found the business under the name "Apple Farms,
LLC", or let's say you also found a business under "Apple's Farm, LLC" (with an apostrophe
s).
Both of these names, although slightly different, are too similar and therefore your desired
LLC name would not be available for use.
An example of an alternative name would be "Apple Orchard, LLC".
The following do not create distinguishability: differences in articles such as "A", "An",
or "The".
For example, your desired LLC name is "Print Shop, LLC".
Let's just say that during the search the database you found a business called the "The
Print Shop, LLC", or you found a business called "A Print Shop, LLC".
Again, although they seem different, these names are all the same in the eyes of the
State, and therefore your desire LLC name would not be available for use.
An alternative name would be "Printing Solutions, LLC".
The following also do not create distinguishability: the use of conjunctions such as "And", "Or",
and the ampersand symbol.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Night & Day, LLC" with the ampersand symbol.
But during your search, you find a "Night and Day, LLC", or you found a "Night Day LLC".
Again, both of these examples are too similar, and your desired LLC name is not distinguishable
and therefore not available for use.
An example of an alternative name will be "Moon and Sunshine, LLC".
The following also do not create distinguishability: the use of certain punctuation such as hyphens,
slashes, periods, commas, etcetera.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Peter Paul & Mary Studios, LLC", but during your
search you found "Peter-Paul-Mary Studios, Incorporated", or you found a "Peter, Paul,
and Mary Studios, Incorporated".
Again, both of these examples are too similar, and therefore your desired LLC name would
not be available for use.
An alternative example would be "PPM Productions, LLC".
Alphanumeric: differences in numerical, or written numbers does not create distinguishability.
For example, let's say your desired LLC name is "Three Teachers Consulting, LLC" (with
a number "three" spelled out), but during your search of the database you found a company
called "3 Teachers Consulting, LLC" (with the number "3").
Again, these are deceptively similar; the State does not look at these as any different
and therefore your desired LLC name would not be available for use.
An alternative example would be "A Few Good Teachers Consulting, LLC".
Deceptively similar names that are too similar to existing organized entities also do not
create distinguishability.
For example, your desired LLC name is "Speedy Delivery Services, LLC", but during your search
let's say you find "Speed Delivery Services, LLC", or you find a "Super Speedy Delivery
Services, LLC".
Again, these names are too similar.
Therefore your desired LLC name would not be available for use.
An example of an alternative name would be "At Your Door Quick, LLC".
Takeaways: as you can see, just filing the paperwork with your desired LLC name is not
as straightforward as you may have originally thought.
The most important takeaways from showing you all these examples are as follows: it's
important to make sure your name is truly unique and not too similar to the names of
existing organized entities; if your desired LLC name is unavailable for use, either by
its exact match already being used, or by it being too similar to an existing name,
we recommend using some creativity and coming up with a variation of your original LLC name,
so that the name is now unique and is "distinguishable", and stands apart from other businesses.
Some additional tips to think of when creating your LLC name are: Make your LLC name easy
to spell.
You want to make sure people can find you when they're looking for you.
Make your LLC name short.
Shorter names are easier for people to remember.
Make your LLC name have a positive connotation.
Leave people with a good feeling when they hear about your business.
You are now ready to search your desired LLC name against the State's online database.
We showed you a number of examples where the desired LLC names were not available for use,
but don't worry.
In the next part of this video, we will provide plenty of examples of names that are available
for use, so that you can best understand the database and the results that you see.
Company Statuses in the Georgia Database.
Companies in the Georgia database will show various statuses when doing your search which
will help you determine your LLC's name availability.
There are multiple statuses in the database, including "Active/Compliance", "Admin.
Dissolved" (for "Administratively Dissolved"), "Automated Administrative Dissolution/Revocation",
"Diss./Cancel/Terminated", ("Dissolved" is what "Diss."
stands for), "To Be Dissolved", and "Withdrawn".
Let's explain the most common statuses.
Statuses of names that are available will be "Dissolved/Cancel/Terminated", and "Withdrawn".
What that means is, is that if you do a search and your desired name is already in existence,
but it has one of these statuses, you can still use that name.
Statuses of names that are not available are "Active/Compliance", Admin.
Dissolved (for "Administrative Dissolved", "Automated/Administrative Dissolution/Revocation",
and "To Be Dissolved".
Again, what this means, if you do a search for your name and it comes up already in existence
and has one of these statuses, you'll need to think of a variation for your name because
it will not be available.
Don't worry, this will make more sense in a moment when we show you how to search the
database.
Remember, these are the most common statuses that you'll see.
For a full list of all the entity statuses that may show in your search results, please
see below this video.
Let's search the online database now.
To show you how this works, it may be easier to watch us perform the search the 1st time,
then you can re-visit this part of the video when you do your own search.
Let's look at our 1st example.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Atlanta Antiques Show, LLC".
So let's go over to the database and, we're first going to search "Atlanta Antiques".
Here I am at Georgia's database.
Right here, we're going to leave the default as they are which is the "Business Name Starts
With".
Whether you type lowercase, or uppercase, it doesn't matter, so let's go ahead and do
our 1st search.
Now although our desired LLC name is "Atlanta Antiques Show", I'm just going to do a search
for "Atlanta Antiques" to see all the results because this is the best way to determine
distinguishability.
All right, now I'm going to hit the "Search" button, and let's look at the results.
You can see there are 4 results here.
We have "Atlanta Antiques & Auction Company, LLC", "Atlanta Antiques & Collectibles", "Atlanta
Antiques International", and "Atlanta Antiques".
In this case, our desired LLC name is going to be available because there's nothing that's
too close to it.
Now, just to double-check, let's go and search this a 2nd time.
And now I'm going to search "Atlanta Antique Show" without the "s" on "Antiques".
This is to be sure that the name is definitely distinguishable and unique.
All right, I've entered "Atlanta Antique Show", and I'm going to click "Search".
And we have "No data found".
That means there's nothing that starts with "Atlanta Antique Show".
In this example , our desired LLC name, "Atlanta Antique Show", is unique and,distinguishable,
and therefore it's available.
Let's look at another example.
Let's say the desired LLC name is "Tech Tools, LLC".
Let's go to the database and, let's first search"Tech Tool" (singular).
I'm going to enter "Tech Tool", click "Search", and look we have "Tech Tool Belt, LLC" and
"Tech Tooling, LLC".
Cool, so far "Tech Tools" is distinguishable as it's unique from these names here.
Let's go ahead and double-check that.
We're going to searchit 1 more way.
We're going to do "Tech Tools" (plural), click "Search".
"No data found".
Perfect.
Again, in this case, our desired LLC name, "Tech Tools, LLC", will be available for use
because it's distinguishable, and there's,nothing like it that's existing.
Let's look at 1 more example.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Joemax Enterprises, LLC".
Let's head over to the database and let's search "Joemax Enterprises".
"Joemax Enterprises, and I'm going to click the "Search" button.
We have a result here: "Joemax Enterprises, LLC".
However, remember earlier we mentioned to check the, statuses.
In this case, this is dissolved, which means that this name is available for use.
Again, "Joemax Enterprises, LLC" is going to be available for use because the prior
entity has been dissolved.
Let's look at some examples of unavailable names.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Peach Trader, LLC".
Let's head over and search "Peach Trader".
I'm going to click "Back to Search", "Peach Trader", click the "Search" button.
"Peach Trader, Inc." with the status of "Active Compliance".
In this case, because there's a "Peach Trader, Inc.", our desired LLC name ("Peach Trader,
LLC") is not going to be available because it's not distinguishable even though that
we want to have an LLC and there's already a Corporation, it doesn't matter, the State
will not approve it because there's already an active and compliant Corporation.
Let's look at another example.
Let's say your desired LLC name is "Cookies & Milk, LLC".
We're going to the database, and we're first going to do a search for "Cookies and Milk"using
the ampersand symbol, and then we'll do "Cookies and Milk with "And" written out.
So let's go Cookies and Milk with the ampersand symbol, hit "Search".
"No data found".
Okay, cool.
So let's go ahead and let's do that search again, but let's do "Cookies and Milk" and
let's hit "Search".
See, it's good that we did the the symbol and the "And" spelled out.
In this case, look: "Cookies and Milk, LLC" with a status of "Active".
So in this case, because there's that existing LLC (Cookies and Milk), just because we want
to use the ampersand symbol does not make it unique, and therefore this name is not
available for use because there's already an active and compliant LLC.
Takeaways: you want to search your desired LLC name every way that you can think of to
make sure it's truly unique and distinguishable.
The good news is that you can search as many names and variations as you'd like, and it's
not going to cost you anything.
This is an important step in forming your LLC, so take the time to ensure your name
is unique, and that it does not conflict with any existing businesses.
If you have any questions about the database, you can call the State at the phone number
found below this video.
Once you find a name that is unique and distinguishable from existing businesses, you can then proceed
to the next step.
This now concludes the Name Research Lesson.