Summary appendix

(From “Letters and Characters – towards a Standard“)

Acceptable letters and diacritical marks

Ordinary Latin alphabet letters, without diacritics:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÞÐÆ

Additional ligatures:

Χ

Letters bearing diacritics:

(Those used only in Esperanto are shown in Italics)

ÁĆÉÍĹŃÓŔŚÚÝŹǼ
ÀÈÌÒÙ
ÂÊÎÔÛŴŶ Ĉ ĜĤĴŜ
ÄËÏÖÜŸ
ŐŰ
ĂČĎĔĞŇŘŠŤŽ
ÇĢĶĻŅŖŞŢ
ĀĒĪŌŪ
ĄĘĮŲ
ÅŮ
Ø
ĊĖĠİŻ
ÃÑÕ
ĦŁĽ

Arabic Numerals:

0123456789

Punctuation and other marks:

():,!.?\;/&+*=#%@£$¥

Marks for consideration:

[]<>°

The 2014 Regulations

The Tables of characters acceptable in company names, from The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, are:

Table 1

Characters, signs and symbols

(Organised by base letter; the Regulations list the characters in the same order but in a seamless 5 x 26 table.)

AÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂĄÆǼ
B
CÇĆĈĊČ
DÞĎÐ
EÈÉÊËĒĔĖĘĚ
F
GĜĞĠĢ
HĤĦ
IÌÍÎÏĨĪĬĮİ
JĴ
KĶ
LĹĻĽĿŁ
M
NÑŃŅŇŊ
OÒÓÔÕÖØŌŎŐǾŒ
P
Q
RŔŖŘ
SŚŜŞŠ
TŢŤŦ
UÙÚÛÜŨŪŬŮŰŲ
V
WŴ
X
YÝŶŸ
ZŹŻŽ
&@£$¥

Table 2

Punctuation
Apostrophe
Bracket()[]{ }<>
Exclamation mark!
Guillemet«»
Inverted comma
Question mark?
Solidus\/

Table 3

Signs and symbols
*=#%+

(In addition a company name may contain a figure (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9), a full stop, comma, colon, semi-colon or hyphen and any other punctuation referred to in Table 2 in Schedule 1 (as above).

Equivalences

If a letter bears a diacritic the letter should be compared to the plain letter. The following comparisons should also be made:

ÆAE
ŒOE
ÞTH
ÐD
ßSS
&AND
+AND

Equivalence rules in the 2015 Regulations

The 2014 Regulations also contain a table of equivalences, to determine whether a proposed company name is to be deemed the same as another. The table, in Schedule 3 of the Regulations, is as follows:

Column 1 (permitted characters)Column 2 (to be treated the same as)
À Á Â Ã Ä Å Ā Ă Ą ẤA
Æ ǼAE
Ç Ć Ĉ Ċ ČC
Þ Ď ÐD
È É Ê Ë Ē Ĕ Ė Ę ĚE
Ĝ Ğ Ġ ĢG
Ĥ ĦH
Ì Í Î Ï Ĩ Ī Ĭ Į İI
ĴJ
ĶK
Ĺ Ļ Ľ Ŀ ŁL
Ñ Ń Ņ Ň ŊN
Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ō Ŏ Ő ǾO
ŒOE CE
Ŕ Ŗ ŘR
Ś Ŝ Ş ŠS
Ţ Ť ŦT
Ù Ú Û Ü Ũ Ū Ŭ Ů Ű ŲU
Ŵ Ẁ Ẃ ẄW
Ỳ Ý Ŷ ŸY
Ź Ż ŽZ

(Interestingly, Þ is compared with D, not with TH.)