If your proposed name violates any of these rules you may get away with it in the short term but it may invite trouble long term. In certain jurisdictions, federal for one, you can be forced to change your name after the fact if it is in contravention of these rules, even if it has been duly registered. If you want both a French and English version of your business name you will need to check that both versions are available. The French and English version must not mislead the public into thinking that they are dealing with two different businesses. For example, CompuCan Inc. and OrdiCan Inc. would imply two different businesses.
Some provinces require a provincial name qualification search to be performed.
For more information and tips on choosing a name, see the provincial Web sites referred to in the precding section, Business Names. These searches are batch processed by the government, they're not done in real time. However, we will normally be able to return your search results within 4 hours. We do guarantee that you will have your search results by the next business day at the latest. We'll email you a copy of the report along with an opinion on the likelihood that the government will accept it for registration and, if not, why not.