Name vs. DBA vs. Trademark (The Solopreneur's Checklist, Part 1)

Getting your business started is a big step, but getting all your legal ducks in a row can be as intimidating as it is important. This checklist is meant to serve as a guide to the main hurdles you’re likely to encounter, how much you actually need to worry about them, and how to clear them like a champ.

This is Part 1 of the Solopreneur’s Checklist series. You can find the other parts (once they’re live) here:

1. Name vs. DBA vs. Trademark
2. (coming soon!) Entity Formation
3. (coming soon!) Registered agents and virtual offices
4. (coming soon!) Banking and payment processing
5. (coming soon!) Business tax basics
6. (coming soon!) Business insurance
7. (coming soon!) Website terms and policies
8. (coming soon!) Licenses and permits

Disclaimer: This guide is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for personalized legal advice from a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction. Every situation is unique, and legal requirements can vary significantly based on your specific facts, industry, and location, so it's highly recommended that you consult with a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction. This guide is not intended to be legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading or otherwise using it.

Also, it’s written primarily from a California perspective. These issues are likely very similar in other states, but the particulars may vary.

Naming your bundle of joy

It’s important to pick a distinctive, unique brand name. That makes it easier for your clients or customers to find you, and also makes it much more likely that your application to register your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office will be successful. When choosing your brand name, also make sure to check domain registrars (like GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) to make sure the URL you’ll want is available!

That said, the name of your company doesn’t have to be the same as your brand name. You can totally form Acme Co. 123, LLC today and worry about picking from among your brand name finalists tomorrow. (There’s maybe one or two extra bits of paperwork that need to get done if your brand name doesn’t match your business name, but it’s nothing onerous.)

You can always re-brand or create new sub-brands (think PepsiCo also owning Sprite, etc.) at any time, without changing the official name of your business itself.

That said, I know it can be hard to even know exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about names, brands, trademarks, and so on. So let’s break that all down.

Name

This is the name officially on your organization or incorporation paperwork, depending on whether you’re forming a corporation or an LLC (more on that in Part 2). If you filed to form Acme Co. 123, LLC, then that’s your company’s name.

If you decide to change it later, you can. It’ll be a little bit of paperwork and a nominal processing fee with the state, but it’s not a big deal procedurally.

That said, just like when changing your own individual name, the real hassle is updating all your existing paperwork and accounts — you’ll need to update your bank and payment processor, your accountant or tax software, and, if you really want to dot all your ‘i’s and cross all your ‘t’s, all of your existing contracts with clients and vendors.

You can essentially think of your entity’s name as the government name it’s assigned at “birth” — it’s certainly convenient when that name is a good fit throughout the company’s life, but there’s also no reason you can’t use a different name entirely later on if that turns out to be a better or more authentic fit.

DBA (or FBN)

There’s no requirement that the brand name you actually use for your business match the official name on the formation paperwork. If it doesn’t match, you’ll need to file a DBA (“doing business as”), sometimes known as an FBN (“fictitious business name”), with your county.

In most counties, this shouldn’t run you more than $50, but it can vary a bit. Some places, though not all, let you do it online. Just doing a quick search for “DBA in [Your City]” should get you sorted.

You’ll then have to publish a notice in a local paper to the effect of “Acme Co. 123, LLC is doing business as CleverBrand.” There are papers everywhere that are set up for this exact purpose. The county clerk that processes your initial filing should give you pretty clear instructions on how to actually do this. Don’t let it stress you out.

The point of this process is mostly just so there’s a public record of who it is that’s actually using the name that consumers are seeing. This way, if there’s an issue with CleverBrand products, consumers will know that they need to talk to Acme Co. 123, LLC.

Trademark

Usually, when we talk about trademarks, what we’re really talking about is registered trademarks.

Your trademark is going to be the name(s) under which you’re actually doing business and selling products or services. It can also be other stuff that’s less name-like, like slogans, mottos, logos, and so on.

There’s no requirement that you register your trademark, but it’s often a good idea once you’ve settled on what your branding is going to look like. Trademark registration is often a slow process (6-12 months) and it’s important to get the initial filings right, so I strongly recommend you consult a trademark attorney to figure out whether, when, and how to apply for registration.

Because trademark registration happens at the federal level (as opposed to the state and county levels for entity formation and DBA/FBN filings), an attorney licensed to practice anywhere in the US can help you with this.

The tl;dr is that while naming and branding are important, from a “starting a business” perspective, they’re also pretty forgiving. You shouldn’t let the search for the perfect name be an obstacle to getting started with actually building your business. You can form your entity with any ol’ name, do a DBA/FBN later if a better name occurs to you, and worry about registering your trademark further down the line once your branding has settled a bit.

The main thing to keep an eye out for is making sure there’s not someone with very similar branding already using it in your space. A trademark attorney (like me!) can help you run a “clearance search” to make sure you’re not going to run into trouble here, and there are nonlawyer, standalone services that’ll do clearance searches for you. Again, though, this really only matters at the branding stage; your official entity name that you’re using to get the paperwork rolling can be basically anything!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Solopreneur’s Checklist: Entity Formation!