The step that quietly kills more incorporations than any other
Ask any founder who has registered a company in India what held them up, and a surprising number will say the same thing: the name. Not the capital, not the directors, not the paperwork — the name. It is the very first gate in the incorporation process, and it is where filings get bounced back again and again, each rejection costing days and, eventually, patience. The frustrating part is that most of these rejections are avoidable. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) does not reject names on a whim; it applies a written set of rules, and once you understand those rules the guesswork disappears. This is the guide to choosing a company name that clears the first time — the forms you file it on, the resemblance test the MCA runs, the words you simply cannot use, and the one move that protects the name long after the company is registered.
Two forms do this job — pick the right one
There are two ways to reserve a company name with the MCA, and which one you use depends on what you are doing.
- SPICe+ Part A is the name-reservation stage of the integrated incorporation form (SPICe+, INC-32). Use it when you are registering a brand-new company. You can file Part A on its own to lock a name first and complete the incorporation (Part B) later, or run Part A and Part B together in a single submission — which is what most incorporations do.
- RUN (Reserve Unique Name) is a standalone web service. Its main use today is changing the name of an existing company, though it can also reserve a name for a new incorporation. It is a simple two-field application, not tied to the full incorporation form.
For a fresh company, SPICe+ Part A is the route. For a company that already exists and wants a new name, RUN is the route. Both run on the MCA's V3 portal, both cost the same, and both are judged against the same naming rules under the Companies Act, 2013 and the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014.
What a compliant name actually looks like
A company name has a predictable shape, and it helps to think of it in parts. There is a distinctive part — ideally a coined or invented word rather than a generic dictionary term — followed, by convention and the MCA's own practice, by a word that signals the business activity, and finally the mandatory suffix that flags the company type. Under the Companies Act:
- A private company's name must end with "Private Limited".
- A public company's name must end with "Limited".
- A One Person Company carries "(OPC) Private Limited".
- A Section 8 (non-profit) company can, with its licence, drop the "Limited"/"Private Limited" suffix and use words such as Foundation, Association, or Council instead.
The more distinctive your chosen word, the smoother the approval. Generic and descriptive names — the kind built entirely from common industry words — collide with existing companies constantly and are the ones that get bounced.
Rule 8: the resemblance test, and everything the MCA ignores
Rule 8 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014 governs when a proposed name "resembles too nearly" the name of an existing company or LLP. The trap here is that founders assume small tweaks make a name distinct. They do not. When the MCA compares your name to what already exists, it disregards a long list of differences — meaning two names it treats as identical will look different to you. The factors it strips out before comparing include:
- The words Private, Pvt, Limited, Ltd and similar type-suffixes.
- Plurals and singulars — "Solution" and "Solutions" are the same.
- Differences in letter case, spacing, and punctuation.
- The definite article "the" at the start.
- Joining words like "and" or "&".
- Different tense or number of the same word.
- Phonetic spellings and deliberate misspellings — "Kwality" reads as "Quality".
- Adding an internet designation such as .com, .net or .in.
- Adding the name of a place or a host of numbers to an otherwise-taken name.
- Translation of an existing name into another language.
The practical takeaway: if there is already a "Zenith Technologies Private Limited", then "Zeniths Technology", "The Zenith Technologies", "Zenith Tech India" and "Zenith Technologies.com" are all likely to be treated as the same name. Distinctiveness has to come from the core word itself, not from cosmetic add-ons.
Rule 8A: undesirable names — and the trademark trap
Rule 8A lists the names the MCA treats as undesirable regardless of whether anyone else has taken them. A name is undesirable if, among other things, it:
- Is prohibited under the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950 — you cannot invoke national emblems, the names of international bodies, and so on.
- Includes a trademark registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (or one for which an application is pending) without the written consent of the trademark owner. This is the single most common reason a distinctive-sounding name gets rejected.
- Contains words that are offensive to any section of people.
- Is identical with or too nearly resembles the name of an LLP — companies and LLPs share the same name space.
- Suggests a connection with a foreign government, embassy or consulate, or implies government patronage, or is connected with a national hero or a widely known personality, without justification.
The trademark point deserves emphasis because it catches people off guard. Founders assume that if the MCA's own name-search shows no company using their chosen word, the name is free. It is not. A registered trademark is a separate right, held under a separate law, and the MCA will refuse a name that treads on one. Before you fall in love with a name, it is worth a quick search of the trademark register alongside the company register.
Rule 8B: the words you can't use without the government's permission
Rule 8B sets out words and expressions that may be used in a company name only after obtaining the prior approval of the Central Government. These are terms that imply state authority, national scale, or a public function, and they include (among others):
- Board, Commission, Authority, Undertaking, Corporation (in certain uses).
- National, Union, Central, Federal, Republic, President, Rashtrapati.
- Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Minister, Governor, and the names of statutory or constitutional offices.
- Municipal, Panchayat, Development Authority.
- The word "Scheme" used with the name of a government, State, India, Bharat, or in a way that resembles a government scheme.
- Statute, Statutory, Court, Judiciary, Small Scale Industries, Financial Corporation.
If your name needs one of these, it is not automatically barred — but it needs the extra approval, which adds time. For most founders the simpler path is to choose a name that avoids these words entirely.
The regulator's blessing: Bank, Insurance, Nidhi, Mutual Fund
A related category is words tied to a regulated activity. If your name includes terms such as Bank, Banking, Insurance, Mutual Fund, Stock Exchange, Venture Capital, Asset Management, Nidhi or the like, the MCA will expect an in-principle approval or No-Objection from the sector regulator — the RBI, IRDAI or SEBI as the case may be — and evidence that you actually intend to carry on and are eligible for that business. You cannot call yourself a "Bank" or an "Insurance" company simply because the word sounds impressive; the name has to match a licence you hold or are entitled to hold.
The fee, the two names, and the resubmission clock
The mechanics are straightforward. A name-reservation application — whether SPICe+ Part A filed on its own or a RUN application — carries a government fee of ₹1,000. You may propose up to two names in order of preference, and the Central Registration Centre (CRC) approves one. If you file SPICe+ Part A and Part B together in a single incorporation submission, you enter only one proposed name.
If the CRC is not satisfied, it does not always reject outright — it can mark the application "Resubmission Required", giving you a window (in practice around 15 days from that marking) to correct and resubmit. The same login that filed the application must be the one that resubmits it. RUN, similarly, allows one resubmission. Use the resubmission wisely: read the objection, fix exactly what it flags, and where the objection is a resemblance or trademark clash, change the distinctive word rather than tinkering at the edges.
The validity window: 20 days, 60 days, and why the clock matters
An approved name does not sit reserved forever. The moment it is approved, a clock starts:
- For a new company, an approved name is reserved for 20 days from the date of approval. You must complete the incorporation (SPICe+ Part B) within that window, or the name lapses and you start again.
- For a change of name of an existing company reserved through RUN, the name is held for 60 days from the date of approval.
The 20-day window can, under Rule 9A, be extended on payment of an additional fee if applied for before it lapses — but the safest approach is to treat the base window as a hard deadline and have your incorporation documents ready before you reserve the name, not after. Founders lose the most time by reserving a name early, then scrambling to assemble DSCs, director documents and the registered-office proof while the clock runs down.
The move that saves you later: reserve the name and file the trademark
Here is the point most founders miss. An MCA-approved company name is not a trademark. Getting "Acme Innovations Private Limited" registered as your company name gives you the right to operate under that corporate name — it does not give you exclusive rights to the brand "Acme" across your market. Someone else can register "Acme" as a trademark, or already have, and then you are the one with a problem, however impeccable your MCA paperwork.
The sensible sequence is to run the two in parallel: check both the company register and the trademark register before you settle on a name, reserve the company name with the MCA, and file a trademark application under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 for the brand you actually intend to build. The company name is your legal identity; the trademark is what stops a competitor from trading off your reputation. You want both.
Where this fits in setting up your business
Name reservation is the opening move of incorporation, not a stand-alone task — so it connects to almost everything that follows. Once the name clears, the incorporation runs through SPICe+, the integrated form that actually registers the company. If you are still deciding what to register, our comparison of business structures and the One Person Company route set out the options and their naming suffixes. LLP founders reserve names through RUN-LLP as part of the FiLLiP filing. The trademark side is covered in our guide to registering a trademark, and if you ever need to rename a company after incorporation, that is a different process altogether — see changing a company's name through INC-24. All of this sits under our pillar on starting a business in India.
How we handle it at RDA, Baner
At RDA Advisory in Baner, Pune, name reservation is the first thing we de-risk for a founder, because it is where do-it-yourself incorporations stall. Before we file anything, we run the proposed names against both the company register and the trademark register, flag resemblance and Rule 8A/8B problems in advance, and shape the name so it clears the first time rather than after two rejections. We reserve it through SPICe+ Part A, keep the incorporation documents ready so the 20-day window is never a scramble, and — where the brand matters — file the trademark application alongside so your name is protected on both fronts. If you are choosing a company name, talk to us before you file, not after it bounces. You will find us at Office No. 102, Snehraj Apartment, Baner, Pune 411045, on +91 77570 45059.
Book a consult at rdatax.in
Have a name in mind, or a shortlist you are stuck between? We will check it against the company and trademark registers, tell you which one will clear, and handle the reservation and the incorporation end to end. Book a consultation at rdatax.in or call the Baner office — get the name right, and the rest of the setup follows cleanly.
Verification note: this guide reflects the naming provisions of Section 4 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Rules 8, 8A, 8B and 9 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014 (as substituted and inserted by the Companies (Incorporation) Fifth Amendment Rules, 2019), the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, together with the MCA's SPICe+ Part A and RUN web-service practice on the V3 portal as understood at the time of writing. Fees, the number of names permitted, resubmission and validity windows, the Rule 9A extension facility and the lists of restricted words are periodically revised and applied at the discretion of the Central Registration Centre, so confirm the current position on the MCA portal or with your CA or company secretary before acting.
