Name that S Corp!

April 15, 2013 8:58 AM

My tax guy says I need to incorporate. What do I call my corporation?

So, my tax guy told me that I have to incorporate. I've been working as a project management consultant, with an emphasis on PMO governance blah blah blah. I operate out of Pasadena, my clients are mostly in California, mostly in the healthcare arena (labs, insurance, clinical environments, etc.)

My initial thought is just FirstName LastName Management Services, Inc. After all, it's me and my expertise that I am selling. On the other hand, it sounds kind of boring and buttoned up. On the third hand, the industry is pretty boring and buttoned up. So, folks, what's the name of my shiny new S Corp?

posted by bluejayway to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Best answer: Hi, this is what I do for a living. Keep in mind that you can always get a fictitious name (you may have heard them referred to as "DBAs") regardless of what you name the actual entity. For the corporation itself, you want it to be a simple as possible. When you file things with any state, punctuation, spelling and so on is a really, really big deal and missing a comma on a state filing could cost you a lot of money, especially in California. I'd honestly just go with Firstname Lastname Inc. or Firstname Lastname Enterprises Inc. if I were you. That way, if you ever expand your business purpose past management services, you won't have to go through the expensive rigmarole of changing the name.
posted by griphus at 9:01 AM on April 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Firstname Lastname is a great way to go, considering you're basically the company.
posted by xingcat at 9:11 AM on April 15, 2013

Oh, one other thing: there are certain words, in every state (and, sigh, they're different in every state) that are restricted for use in corporate names. I'm only particularly aware of the NY ones -- someone else handles CA -- but most of them have to do with healthcare and insurance. So make sure the entity is formed before you start branding things. I am dealing with this problem right now with a client because he registered his domain before his entity formed, the entity was rejected due to an issue with the name, and now he's got a headache.
posted by griphus at 9:28 AM on April 15, 2013

I first found and registered an available dotcom name, then used that. It took two days thinking and typing to find one I liked that was available.
posted by w0mbat at 10:11 AM on April 15, 2013

PMOsadena

The Healthfiles

AdPMOn

Health Carena

PMO Sherpa Corporation
posted by oceanjesse at 10:18 AM on April 15, 2013