How to Choose and Check a Company Name in Ireland (2026 Guide)

You’ve got the perfect name in your head.

Before you print business cards, here’s the reality: the Companies Registration Office rejects names every day, and a bounced name can cost you days of delay.

The good news is that the rules are knowable, and a two-minute check can save you a lot of frustration.

The golden rule: your name must be distinctive

The single biggest reason names get rejected is that they’re too similar to a name already on the register.

The CRO isn’t just looking for identical matches — it looks at whether names are confusingly alike.

Adding a small word, swapping “and” for “&”, or changing “Ltd” to “Limited” usually won’t make a near-identical name acceptable.

Your name needs to be genuinely distinguishable from every other company already registered.

This is exactly why you should run a free company name check before you fall in love with a name — it flags likely clashes before you file.

The other rules that catch people out

Beyond distinctiveness, the CRO will reject or restrict a name that:

• Is offensive or contravenes public decency.
• Implies state sponsorship or a connection to the government or the EU without authority.
• Uses sensitive or restricted words — like “bank”, “insurance”, “university” or “society” — unless you have permission from the relevant authority.
• Suggests a scale or activity you don’t have in a misleading way.

There is also a formatting requirement: a private limited company’s name must end in “Limited” or “Ltd”, or the Irish equivalents, “Teoranta” or “Teo”.

Company name vs business name — don’t confuse them

This trips people up constantly.

Your company name is the legal name registered with the CRO.

A business name, or trading name, is a name you trade under that’s different from your legal name — for example, “Bright Spark Ltd” trading as “Bright Spark Electrical”.

If you plan to trade under anything other than your exact company name, you register that business name separately with the CRO.

They’re two different things, and getting the distinction right saves confusion later.

Two checks the CRO doesn’t do for you

Approval by the CRO is not the whole story.

Two more checks are on you:

• Trademarks. A name can be free on the company register but still infringe someone’s registered trademark. A quick trademark search protects you from a nasty letter down the line.
• Domain and social handles. If your name is taken as a `.ie` or `.com` domain, or across social media, that affects your brand even if the company name itself is available. Check these before you commit.

Put it all together

The smart sequence is: brainstorm a shortlist, run each through a name check against the CRO register, sanity-check trademarks and domains, then lock it in and form your company.

Do it in that order and you’ll avoid the two classic outcomes — a rejected submission, or discovering after launch that you can’t own your own brand online.

Stuck between a few options, or not sure if a name will pass?

Send them to us — we’ll check them against the register and tell you which ones are likely to fly.