Fun Facts About Naming Your Delaware Company
When forming a new Delaware company, they’re many variables to consider and sometimes, clients get stuck during one of the most important parts of the process; deciding which company name they should proceed with. Not only do clients have difficulty deciding on what their Delaware company name should be to convey the services they wish to provide, but sometimes clients are also unfamiliar with the options that are available to them.
For Delaware formations, the state requires the company to have a specific corporate ending which helps indicate the entity type being formed in Delaware. For example, the acceptable corporate endings for LLC’s are LLC, L.L.C. or Limited Liability Company, while for Corporations, the options to consider are Association, Company, Corporation (Corp.), Club, Foundation, Fund, Incorporated (Inc.), Institute, Limited (Ltd.), Society, Union and Syndicate.
But one important aspect that many clients are not aware of when forming their Delaware company is that a corporate ending does not have to appear at the end of your company name. The ending can appear anywhere throughout the company name.
While the most popular way a name is listed is ABC LLC or ABC Inc., sometimes clients that have a longer name include corporate endings in the middle of their title. For example, a client may want to form a new Delaware Corporation with the name, Aarons Society of Financial Assistance Inc. The term, ‘Society’ is actually considered a corporate ending for a Corporation in Delaware which means the ‘Inc.’ does not necessarily have to be included in the company name. The client can certainly decide to have ‘Inc.’ listed at the end of the name but the client can also decide to leave the company name as Aarons Society of Financial Assistance.
For an LLC, perhaps a client may want to form a company with the name John’s LLC of Housing Development. The more common way the name may appear could be John’s Housing Development LLC, however, the client may prefer the company name to read as John’s LLC of Housing Development which would be fine in Delaware.
And often, clients think that they have to always include the most popular corporate ending such as LLC or Inc. which is generally not the case. In my experience, many clients are not aware that they can form a Delaware company with the words ‘Union’, ‘Club’ or ‘Institute’ and that these words also meet the state’s requirement of having a corporate ending for a Corporation. Below are some examples for review:
Union for IT Development
Learning Institute of Southern County
Club of Financial Advisors
ABC Shipping Limited or ABC Shipping Ltd.
Association of Building Developers
Financial Services Syndicate
Society of Bird Watchers
Construction Management L.L.C.
Mid-State Painting Limited Liability Company
Another fun fact about Delaware company names is that sometimes, clients think that their company name has to be in all capital letters, or they sometimes think that they cannot start the company name with a lowercase letter. When searching the Delaware Division of Corporations records, the state website will list the company names in all capital letters, however, the Certificate of Formation/Incorporation filed with the state will include the company name exactly as the client wanted it filed. Therefore, you can form a company name in capital letters, lowercase letters, or a combination of the two. For example, a client may want to form a company as YouShop LLC or uShop Syndicate in Delaware. This would be fine.
Clients also are sometimes not aware that they can include symbols in their company name. For example, in addition to capital and lowercase letters A-Z, numerals 0-9, Delaware will also accept the following symbols and punctuation:
! “ ” # $ % & ’ () * + ,- . ? / \ : ;@ { } [ ] ~_^ ` |
A client can form a company with a name such as $pend my Money LLC. Please note, it’s important to consider some of the variables when adding a symbol in the name especially when obtaining an EIN/Federal Tax ID Number for the company as the IRS will not recognize certain symbols in the company name.
Deciding on your Delaware company name is one of the most exciting times in the company formation process. Clients that know the rules for corporate endings, capitalization, and symbol usage may be able to come up with a more detailed and fun name that better conveys the services they plan to provide.
If you plan on forming a new Delaware company and obtaining an EIN, or if you have any questions regarding the formation process, we can be reached at 1-302-645-7400 or 1-800-345-2677 ext. 6900 or via email at info@delawareinc.com. We can also be reached via skype at delawareinc.
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