How to Check if a Business Name Is Taken: Trademarks, Domains and Apps

In short: A business name can be taken in five independent places: trademark registers, business registries, domain registries, social networks and app stores. A free name checker clears the fast parts (domains, usernames, App Store conflicts) in seconds. Trademarks need a search of the USPTO, TMview and WIPO databases for similar names in related fields, and the business registry needs a search where you will register. Drop a name early if a related business already uses it.

"Is the .com free?" is usually the first question people ask about a new name, and the least important one. A domain is one of five places a name can be taken, and the other four can force you to rename after you have printed signs, built an app and earned your first reviews. This guide shows how to check each place, what the results mean and what to do when some of them come back red.

"Taken" means five different things

These are independent. The US Small Business Administration is explicit: an entity name "can protect the name of your business at a state level," a trademark "can protect the name of your business, goods, and services at a national level," and "each of these name registrations are legally independent" (SBA). Passing one check tells you nothing about the others.

Why checking matters

A trademark conflict is the expensive one. If an existing business holds rights to a similar name for related products, you may have to stop using yours, which means a new domain, new signage, a new app name and lost recognition. Domains and handles are cheaper problems: annoying, but you can work around them. The order of the checks below follows that cost.

Step 1: Search the trademark databases

Start here, because a trademark conflict is the only result that should end a name on its own.

Where to search:

• USPTO Trademark Search (tmsearch.uspto.gov) for the United States.
• TMview (tmdn.org/tmview), run by the EU Intellectual Property Office, which covers the EU's trademark offices and many offices outside the EU, including the USPTO.
• WIPO Global Brand Database (WIPO), which includes international registrations under the Madrid System and trademarks from participating national and regional offices.

What to look for: not only the exact name. The USPTO says "trademarks don't have to be identical to be confusingly similar" and that marks can conflict if they are "similar in sound, appearance, or meaning, or could create a similar commercial impression" (USPTO). Search for:

• the exact name,
• alternative spellings (ph/f, c/k, doubled letters, dropped vowels),
• the name with and without a space,
• the distinctive part alone, if your name has two words.

How to judge a hit: similarity alone is not a conflict. The goods or services must be related too. The USPTO's own example: "identical trademarks with different owners can be registered for Dove soap and Dove ice cream bars." A live mark for software or mobile apps that sounds like your app name is a serious problem; the same word registered for a plumbing company in another field may not be.

How strong your own name is: the USPTO ranks marks from strongest to weakest: fanciful (invented words), arbitrary (real words unrelated to the product), suggestive, descriptive and generic, and notes that generic terms "aren't even trademarks" (USPTO). A descriptive name like "Fast Plumbing" is hard to protect, so even if it is free, you may not be able to stop others from using something close.

For a name you will build a business on, have a trademark attorney run a full clearance search in your classes and markets. The database searches above are how you avoid paying for a clearance on a name that a five-minute search would have killed.

Step 2: Check the business registry

If you are forming a company, search the business registry where you will register it. In the US that is a state-level registry; the SBA notes that registering an entity name generally prevents others from registering the same name in that state, with exceptions. If you will operate under a different name than your legal entity, you may need a DBA ("doing business as") registration, which the SBA says "doesn't provide legal protection by itself."

Outside the US, most countries have a national company register with a public name search. The same principle applies: a registered company name and a trademark are separate rights.

Step 3: Check domains

A domain is the one name right you can buy instantly. The SBA notes that once you register a domain, "no one else can use it for as long as you continue to own it."

The reliable way to check is RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol that ICANN describes as "the replacement for the WHOIS protocol." All generic top-level domain registries and registrars are required to provide it (ICANN). An RDAP server answers 404 when it has "an empty result set" for the query (RFC 7480), which for a domain lookup means the registry has no registration for it.

Three caveats:

• "Not registered" is not always "for sale at the normal price". Registries can hold back reserved or premium names.
• Country-code extensions are different. ICANN's RDAP requirement covers generic extensions like .com, .net, .app and .dev. Many country-code extensions, which include popular ones like .io and .co, are not listed in IANA's public RDAP directory, so an automated check cannot always answer for them. Check those at a registrar.
• "Taken" is not always "in use". Many registered domains are parked or for sale. Look at what the site shows before you give up on it.

Step 4: Check social media usernames

Check the networks where your customers are: usually Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, and GitHub for developer products. Some networks have public lookups, most do not, so you will open several profile URLs by hand. On Bluesky, the default username ends in .bsky.social, but you can also use your own domain as your handle (Bluesky), which makes the domain even more valuable.

If the exact username is taken, a consistent variation (adding "app", "hq" or "get") is normal. Avoid a different variation on every network.

Step 5: Check the app stores

If your business includes an app, the app stores have their own rules:

• App Store: App Store Connect says "you can use an app name for one app per localization." If another developer already uses the name, it is unavailable to you; if you hold trademark rights to it, Apple offers a claim process (App Store Connect Help). Apple's guideline 4.1(c) also says you "cannot use another developer's icon, brand, or product name" in your app's name without approval (App Review Guidelines).
• Google Play: there is no one-name-per-app rule, but Google asks that your title be "unique" and that it not "mislead users or cause them to mistakenly download the wrong app" (Play Console Help).

Search both stores for the name in your main countries. A name used by an app in your category is effectively taken even where the rules would let you in.

How the Searvia brand name checker works

The free brand name checker runs the fast checks for one name in a few seconds, with no account. It does not register or reserve anything.

First it turns your name into a handle: accents are converted to plain letters, everything is lowercased and spaces, hyphens and symbols are dropped, so "Fern Haus" is checked as fernhaus. Then, in parallel:

In the App Store check, "Taken" means an app's title is the name itself or starts with it followed by a separator (as in "Name: Something"); "Similar names" means the name appears as a whole word inside another title. Up to five matching apps are listed with their developers.

Today, .io and .co are not in IANA's RDAP directory, so the checker looks up their DNS name servers instead and marks the row "DNS check". A domain with name servers is taken; one without is probably, not certainly, free, because a registered domain can exist without name servers. A result is cached for six hours, and GitHub results for 24 hours. The checker allows 30 checks per hour per visitor.

If you do not have a name yet, the app name generator suggests up to 15 candidates with a .com check for each, and opens the same full check for any of them.

How to read the results

The availability score

The score out of 100 summarizes the automated checks. The weights reflect what is hardest to work around: the .com counts most (35 points), then the App Store result (30), then GitHub and Bluesky (6 each) and the other six domains (3 each). A "Probably available" domain earns three quarters of its points and "Similar names" half. Unknown results are left out, so a source that did not answer neither raises nor lowers the score. Scores of 75 and above show in green, 50 to 74 in amber, lower in red.

The score does not include trademarks, business registries or the networks you check by hand. A score of 90 with a live trademark in your field is still a no.

The statuses

The App Store check covers iPhone apps in the US storefront and the first 15 results of Apple's public iTunes Search API, which Apple describes as a tool to "search for content within the iTunes Store" (Apple). Because uniqueness is per localization, and a name can be held by an app record that is not published yet, "No conflict found" is a strong hint, not proof. The final answer comes when you create your app record in App Store Connect.

What to do when part of the name is taken, step by step

Step 1: Sort the conflicts by cost

Trademark in a related field: stop and choose another name. App with the same name in your category: almost always stop. Company with the same name in your state: you cannot register it there; consider another name. Domain or username: usually workable.

Step 2: Look at who holds the domain

Open the site. An active business in your field is a warning that goes beyond the domain. A parked page or "for sale" notice means you can try to buy it or work around it.

Step 3: Choose a consistent workaround

If the .com is out of reach, use one pattern everywhere: getname.com and @getname, or name.app and @nameapp. Consistency matters more than which modifier you pick.

Step 4: Adjust the app title, not the brand

On the App Store, if the bare name is used in one localization, the store title can still be distinctive with a descriptor, for example "Name: Plant Care". That only works if the other app is in an unrelated category and there is no trademark conflict.

Step 5: Claim everything at once

When a name passes, register the domain, create the company or DBA, reserve the usernames and create the app record within the same few days, and file the trademark application if you plan to. Announce after that, not before.

A worked example (hypothetical)

All names and results here are invented. A founder wants to call a meal-planning app and its company "Plattr".

1. Trademarks: USPTO and TMview show "PLATR" registered for restaurant software in the US. Similar sound, related field. Name dropped, before anything else was bought.
2. Second candidate, "Simmerly": no similar marks in software classes in the three databases.
3. Name checker: score 71. .com taken (a parked page), .app and .dev available, .io probably available and .co taken (both by DNS check), GitHub and Bluesky available, App Store shows no conflict.
4. Business registry: no company with that name in the founder's state.
5. By hand: Instagram and TikTok free; X taken by an inactive account.
6. Decision: brand "Simmerly", domain simmerly.app, @simmerlyapp on X and the same handle elsewhere for consistency, app record created the same day, trademark filing discussed with an attorney.

Common mistakes

• Starting with the domain. It is the cheapest problem. Start with trademarks.
• Searching only the exact spelling. Similar sound and meaning count.
• Treating a state registration as protection. It is state-level and independent of trademark rights.
• Trusting one country's App Store. Names are unique per localization.
• Ignoring the field. Identical names in unrelated fields can coexist; similar names in your own field often cannot.
• Announcing before claiming. Domains and handles can be registered by anyone who hears the name first.

Check your name now

Run your shortlist through the free brand name checker: domains, GitHub and Bluesky, App Store conflicts and trademark search links in one view. Need ideas first? The app name generator gives you 15 candidates to start from. In a Searvia account, Brand Studio keeps your shortlist, checks every name and builds a starter brand kit and launch checklist for the one you choose; credits and plans are on the pricing page.