Choosing Your Company Name – Characters and Symbols

Updated on 06/02/2024

Stressing the importance of a company name is pointless – let’s just leave it at “it matters”. So in this series of blogs, we’re going to touch on the restrictions imposed by Companies House in regard to what you can and can’t call your company. So before we wade into the sticky topic of “restricted words” (blog to follow) let us start with a slightly easier subject – Characters and Symbols.

So let’s get straight to it. Below are all the characters and symbols allowed by Companies House:

The Alphabet

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u
V v W w X x Y y Z z

Numbers

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Symbols

& @ £ $ * = # % + ‘’ ( ) [ ] { } < > € ¥ ! ‘ “ ” ? \ / « » . – _ : ;

Please note that you can’t use symbols in the first three characters of the company name.

The most notable exception when dealing with symbols is an accent, for example “café”. In these situations we would recommend simply using the word “café” without the accent and simply trade with the accent post-formation.