A recent analysis of 5.6 million UK company names reveals just how many businesses are choosing similar naming conventions, with words like “services”, “management” and “group” appearing hundreds of thousands of times. With so many similar names – and strict rules around what you can register – how much can your business really stand out?

The top 10 most common words in UK company names

Across 30 phrases commonly found in company names, five stood out as occurring most frequently:

• Services – 253,230 mentions
• Management – 158,647 mentions
• Group – 120,826 mentions
• Solutions – 119,646 mentions
• Holdings – 108,034 mentions

“Services” appears in over 4.5% of the 5.6 million names analysed, and together these five words feature in more than 760,000 company names – showing how often businesses fall back on familiar, generic language. Looking at the last 10 years, these words consistently appear within the top five.

Lee Murphy, Managing Director of The Accountancy Partnership, says:

“When starting a business, the name can feel like another daunting task on a very long list, so it’s no surprise that people reach for familiar words like ‘services’ or ‘solutions’. A name doesn’t have to be wild or clever, but it should feel like it belongs to your business, not any one of a hundred others.”

Business “buzzwords” are shifting

There were 42,297 companies matching the study’s search criteria incorporated in 2015, compared with 114,024 in 2025 – a 170% increase, signalling growth in company registrations over the decade.

Within that, traditional-sounding words like “associates” are on the way down, while trendier, more modern terms such as “labs”, “prime” and “innovations” have exploded in use:

Biggest risers (2015–2025):

• Labs – 80 → 1,096 (+1,270%)
• Prime – 134 → 1,179 (+780%)
• Innovations – 88 → 615 (+599%)
• Elite – 227 → 1,284 (+466%)
• Global – 1,174 → 6,066 (+417%)

This points to more businesses positioning themselves as innovative, premium or globally minded in their branding, at least in name.

From ‘Dog’ to ‘LMAO’: the weird and wonderful words helping companies stand out

The Accountancy Partnership also tested a selection of random, quirky words to see how often they appeared in UK company names. While these terms don’t form a clear trend, they show how far some founders are willing to go to create a memorable brand – from playful pet references to full-on internet slang:

• Dog – 3,380 mentions
• Cat – 1,404
• Foot – 794
• Banana – 289
• Soup – 162
• Woof – 131
• Toilet – 72
• Elbow – 66
• Leg – 62
• “LOL” – 32
• Eyebrow – 17
• “LMAO” – 1

Whether they’re playing with humour, everyday objects or body parts, these unusual choices suggest some founders are prioritising memorability over convention.

The Imitation Game

As Confucius put it, “imitation” can be the easiest route to learning – and some UK businesses seem to be applying that logic to their names.

The analysis found that famous brand words are cropping up in company names:

• Apple – 983 company names
• Amazon – 199
• Tesla – 105

This suggests some businesses may be trying to borrow a little shine from global giants, although it also raises questions about how close is too close when it comes to brand naming.

Murphy comments:

“Treat naming as part of your long-term planning. A little extra thought at the beginning is much cheaper than a rebrand once you’ve built a reputation and registered everything with HMRC and Companies House.”

Methodology

The Accountancy Partnership analysed around 5.6 million active and dissolved UK company names using data from the Companies House Free Company Data Product. The study focused on 30+ commonly used business-related words, measuring how often they appeared in company names and how this changed between 2015 and 2025.