A business name is more than just words many factors play into creating an acceptable name.” tweeted the Business Registration Service.
A business name is a representation of your business ethos values and brand as a whole
According to the Companies Act 2015(Companies Act) many factors need to be put into consideration before crafting an acceptable business name, contrary to popular opinion.
According to regulations highlighted by the Business Registration Service;
•A company name is restricted to a maximum of 160 characters
•A name of a private limited company must end with “Ltd” or limited.
•Offensive or abusive language whether In vernacular or official language is not permissible
•The name of a public limited company must end with plc standing for “Public Limited Company”
•Names that depict political affiliations are not allowed. Okay
•The name should not start with Kenya. Such are reserved for government-owned entities and corporations.
Business owners are required to acquire the approval of registrars of companies before using the word Kenya.
•The names of businesses should not be identical to an already reserved name or the name of an existing registered company, business name , or LLP partnership. The regulation is limited to where the existing registered company, business name, and LLP partnership belong to the same group. Consent in writing is required from the original owner of the name.
•It is imperative to search for the trademarks registry to ensure that the name is not the same as or similar to that of a registered trademark
•Numbers may be used at any point in the name.
•Punctuation marks may be used such as a full stop, comma, semicolon colon, and hyphen.
•Business names containing the words “cooperative, society or trade Union are not permissible.
•Other Punctuation marks that may be used include the apostrophe, brackets/parenthesis, inverted commas, question marks, solidus, and exclamation marks.
When a reservation is made of a business name no other company may register with that name for the next 30 days.
Registering your business presents numerous benefits such as increasing credibility, easier access to a bank account under a business name, increased borrowing score and you can easily registration for an MPESA till number.
