“The name of a company is considered the most important sign which identifies an enterprise. It plays an important role in brand positioning and market access. Therefore, the name of a company should meet the owner’s needs, be easy to remember, form a good impression on partners & customers and also conform to the provisions of the law, distinguishing with other businesses.”
In this article, we shall refer to the provisions of Vietnamese law on naming enterprises and current regulations pertaining to enterprise names as per the ‘Law on Enterprise 2020’.
The name of a business can include a Vietnamese name, a foreign name, and an abbreviated name. In Vietnam, a Vietnamese name is required but a foreign name or abbreviated name are optional.
Vietnamese name: The Vietnamese name of the enterprise consists of two elements in the following order:
[1] Type of business [2] Proper name
[1] The type of business: Shall be “công ty trách nhiệm hữu hạn” or “công ty TNHH” for limited liability companies, “công ty cổ phần” or “công ty CP” for joint stock companies, “công ty hợp danh” or “công ty HD” for partnerships, and “doanh nghiệp tư nhân”, “DNTN” or “doanh nghiệp TN” for sole proprietorships.
[2] Proper name: The proper name may consist of letters in the Vietnamese alphabet, the letters F, J, Z, W, numbers, and symbols. Thus, the proper name of the company can be a Vietnamese word, or a foreign word, or a phrase, or may only include numbers and symbols, depending on the needs of the company and in accordance with the provisions of law.
Foreign name: The enterprise’s name in a foreign language is the translation of the Vietnamese name into one of the Latin-based languages. The proper name of the enterprise’s may be kept unchanged or translated into a foreign language.
Abbreviated name: The abbreviated name of an enterprise may be abbreviation of its Vietnamese name or foreign language name.
Example:
Type of business | Proper name | Company name | Foreign name | Abbreviated name |
Công ty TNHH | Vina house | Công ty TNHH Vina house | English: Vina house Company Limited French: Vina Maison Co., Ltd | VH Co., Ltd VM Co., Ltd |
Công ty cổ phần | Bạn và tôi | Công ty cổ phần Bạn và tôi | Keep the Vietnamese name: Bạn và tôi Joint Stock Company English: You and Me Joint Stock Company Spanish: Usted y yo Sociedad Anónima | BVT JSC YAM UYYSA
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* Please note that the proper names in this table are only used as examples for illustrating the structure of company names within the scope of this article.
Enterprises should note that in the process of naming their company, it is necessary to avoid violating the following conditions:
The determination of a name that is confusingly similar to the name of a registered enterprise is based on the following grounds:
To ensure that the proposed Company name is valid, you can refer to (1) Registered trademarks and geographical indications stored in the database of trademarks and geographical indications of The National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam to avoid infringing upon industrial property rights protected under Vietnamese law. (2) National database on Business registration to check the identical and similar names of the proposed Company’s.
Thus, clients should consider the above regulations while registering the name of a company.
The article is based on the current law at the time of recording as above and may no longer be relevant at the time readers access this article due to changes in applicable law and specific cases that the reader wants to apply. Therefore, the article is for reference only.