Rhode Island's entity name standard is “Distinguishable upon the records of the Secretary of State.” This means that we will deny a request for a name if such name is identical to or not distinguishable from any other entity name on file in the active records of our Business Filing Section, or a name the exclusive right to which is, at the time filed, reserved or registered in the manner provided in Title 7, or the name of a corporation, whether for-profit or nonprofit, limited partnership, limited liability partnership or limited liability company that has in effect a registration of its name as provided in Title 7.

Without limiting our authority to determine that a name is not distinguishable, a name shall not be deemed “distinguishable” from an existing name if the only difference between the names results from any one or more of the following:

• An article (a, an, the)
• Plural forms of the same word
• Phonetic spelling of the same name or word (For example, Cat - Kat, or Boyz – Boys)
• An abbreviation in place of a complete spelling of the name (For example, Northeast Industries, Inc. – NE Industries, Inc)
• A suffix or prefix added to a word or any other deviation from or derivative of the same word (For example, Finance Specialists, Inc. – Financing Specialists, Inc. or Possible Dreams, Inc. – Impossible Dreams, Inc.)
• A change in a word or name indicating entity status (For example, Acme Enterprises, Inc. – Acme Enterprises Corporation)
• The addition of a numeric designation, unless consent is granted (For example, Gourmet Bakery, Inc. – Gourmet Bakery I, Inc. – Gourmet Bakery II, Inc.)
• Differences in punctuation or special characters
• Differences in capitalization
• Differences in whether letters or numbers immediately follow each other or are separated by one or more spaces
• An Arabic numeral representing a number, a roman numeral representing the same number and/or a word representing the same number appearing in the same position within otherwise identical names (For example, 2 Brothers Pizza, Inc. – II Brothers Pizza, Inc. - Two Brothers Pizza, Inc.)

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