Of course you already know this, but don't forget that these are your #1 tools to use. If the company name is already in use, there is a 90% chance that it will come right up in Yahoo's or Google's immediate search results. Check using a few different search engines for even more accuracy. Sometimes a business name may not show up in google, but will show up in another search engine.

• - Yahoo of course is a great search engine to use.
• - Of course google is a good search engine to use.
• - AltaVista ia another good search engine to use.
• - dogpile is also a great search engine you can use.

Begin here for links and methods for searching existing company and business names. The second site we recommend is the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). They have a search system called TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System). The system does not have 100% of registered trademarks listed due to new trademarks being added daily and it seems they are about a year behind, but this is definitely a good place to start towards the creation of a company name. A lot of companies and businesses don't even have a trademark but are still officially using a company name. You will have to use other resources, some of which are listed on this page, to assist you in discovering if the company name you want is already in use somewhere else.

• - How to search Patents and Trademarks on the USPTO site.
• - USPTO's Home Page.

For searching Fictitious Business names, there is no one database on the Internet that has all Fictitious Business names in it. Instead there are individual sites for almost every city and/or state that you can go to and check their records online to see if they have a listing for the name idea that you are considering. We have found a great site that actually does a tremendous job at locating business names all across the United States. It's like a yellow pages for the United States. The site is called Switchboard and is at www.switchboard.com. We challenge you not to find your name idea already listed somewhere in switchboard. To use switchboard, you just type in your name idea and which state you want to check for your name idea, click Search and that's all. It will bring up all the businesses in that state that have a similar name.

• - Yellowpages.com - This is the yellow pages for businesses all across the country. Another great site.
• - National Business Registry - UK. This is a superior site, too bad it only covers the UK.

Our favorite domain search link currently is domainsearch.com. It's very simple and fast to use and doesn't keep any records of domain name searches. It's lightweight and can perform multiple top level domain searches at once (.com, .net, .org, .us, etc..). Domainsearch.com also doesn't have pop-ups and just simply runs smooth. Domainsearch.com also doesn't automatically reserve domain names just because you checked on availability. We love domainsearch.com and believe it is one of the most efficient domain search sites on the Internet.

• - InterNIC - Another good domain search site, includes Whois search.
• - Instant Domain Search - As fast as you can type. This is a great domain search tool and very fast.

After you have searched all over the Internet and asking around etc.. and it really looks like your name idea is probably available, you may choose to do an official professional search. These searches range in price from $25.00 up to $1000.00 depending on just how thorough of a search you want or need. Official business name and trademark searches are usually conducted by legal experts, particularly Patent and Trademark lawyers. If you want to save some money, you could actually set an appointment and go into one of the USPTO's Patent and Trademark Depository Librarys and perform a search yourself and there are trained staff that can assist you, but even the USPTO website informs the public that Patent and Trademark data is searchable at their website. Depending on your needs of your name idea, you may not even need to do a full blown trademark search, but by doing an official search, it 1: proves that you did not intentionally infringe on a trademark (if it comes back cleared for use), 2: Informs you about other trademarks and businesses that are similar to your name idea. A search could also save you money in the longer run in legal fees should you happen to find out you infringed on someone elses trademark. After performing all of the search methods above and your name idea is coming up clear, you are at about 90% chance that your name idea is safe to use legally, but after an official business name and trademark search, you should be up to about 98% chance of safe to use. The remaining 2% is for that off the wall far out chance that there is actually somebody somewhere who is somehow out of touch with the rest of the world actually conducting business transactions under the same name as your name idea or a name that is so similar. There are several good websites that can perform the search for you.

• - LegalZoom - Really quick and easy and reasonably priced.
• - Thomson & Thomson - Most well known professional searchers.

- Name Development Tools

- Learning Tools

- Tips and Tricks

- Coming Soon! EngiName's Domain Search Tool

- Coming Soon! EngiName's World Wide Name Search Tool