There are some restrictions on corporate business names. No two names can be identical or be so closely associated that there may be confusion. In order to determine if there is confusion with business names the following criteria are used:

·        Distinctive character of each name and each of their elements

·        Visual and phonetic similarity

·        Similarity in the ideas they evoke

·        Manner in which the names are used

·        Notoriety of each name

·        Actual or potential competition between the corporations

·        Nature and quantity of goods and services offered

·        Territory and number of persons served by both corporations

There are also words that are prohibited from being used in a business corporation name, which include:

·        Obscene words or wording

·        Co-op, co-operative or any variation

·        RCMP

·        Parliament Hill

·        United Nations

·        Red Cross

·        Housing

·        Association

·        Any wording that could be confused with any government institution

·        Engineering, Engineers

·        College, University or Institute.

Documentation Required to Incorporate

Most often you will only need to file the Articles of Incorporation and the registration fees. If you are a named corporation, you need to include the name search report with your Articles of Incorporation.

Named versus Numbered Corporations

The decision between a named corporation and a numbered corporation is one that you can make. In some cases, choosing the numbered company name is a much faster process because you don’t have to do a name search; you just take the next available number from the jurisdiction, such as Canada Ltd., Alberta Ltd., etc.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is a lot to do when incorporating a business in Canada. There are many decisions that need to be made, however once those are made, the process is quite straightforward, although the paper work can be quite difficult to master.

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