How to Name Your Oregon LLC

Whether you’re searching for the right business name or registering your LLC with the Oregon Secretary of State (SOS), we can help. We’ve got all the information you need on how to conduct an Oregon business search, plus LLC naming rules, assumed names and registering your business.

General Rules for LLC Names

These rules typically apply to all LLCs, regardless of what state they’re formed in.

Specific Rules for Oregon Business Names

In addition to the general rules listed above, Oregon has some specific business naming statutes. You’ll need to follow these rules to name your business appropriately. Here is an excerpt from Oregon Administrative Rule 160-010-0011, sections 5–6:

(5) Names submitted for registration must be composed of the English letters “a” through “z,” and the Arabic and Roman numerals 0 through 9, in integers or spelled out.

(6) The following special characters and punctuation marks will also be allowed in the name, however they will not, by themselves, make a name distinguishable:

(a) Special Characters — asterisk (*); “at” sign (@); backslash (\); left brace ( { ); right brace ( } ); caret (^); dollar sign ($); “equal to” sign (=); “greater than” sign (>); “less than” sign (<); number sign (#); percentage sign (%); plus sign (+); tilde (~); and underscore (_).

(b) Punctuation Marks — apostrophe ( ‘ ); left bracket ([ ); right bracket( ]); colon (:); comma (,); dash or hyphen (-); exclamation point (!); left parenthesis (( ); right parenthesis ( ) ); period (.); question mark (? ); single quote mark (“ ); double quote mark ( “ ” ); semicolon (;); and slash ( / ).

How to Come Up with a Business Name

Finding the perfect business name can be tricky. We have a complete guide to choosing the right business name, but basically, you'll want to choose a name that will:

Need help coming up with business name ideas? Try our free Business Name Generator.

Oregon Business Search

Once you have an idea of the business name you’d like to use, you’ll need to perform an Oregon business name search to make sure another business doesn’t already have that name.

Incfile offers a fast, simple and convenient tool to look up your proposed business name. The Oregon SOS also has a tool that lets you search the State of Oregon business registry to see whether someone already has your desired business name.

Trademarks and Service Marks

You must be careful that your Oregon LLC name doesn’t infringe on the trademark or service mark of another business. The easiest way to make sure your proposed business name doesn’t do that is to complete a trademark search through Incfile. If no one else is using it, you can even register it as a trademark yourself.

Oregon DBA or Assumed Name

You may do business under a different name from your legal LLC name. In some states, this is called a DBA (doing business as), fictitious name or trade name. In Oregon, it's called an assumed name. You may decide to use an Oregon assumed name for a variety of reasons.

For example, your business might be called PNW Marketing Solutions, LLC, and under that company, you have an event planning business called PNW Excellent Events. You could file for an assumed name just for that brand. You'll do that with the Assumed Business Name - New Registration form, or you can have Incfile do it on your behalf through our DBA service.

Note: A trade name is not the same as a trademark. Learn more about trademark vs. DBA.

Register Your Business Name with the Oregon SOS

Once you’ve completed an Oregon business entity search, checked availability, followed the naming rules and decided whether you need an assumed name, you can register your LLC name. There are a couple of ways to do this.