Determine whether the name you have selected has already been filed by another party. It is your responsibility to perform a business name search.
Search Business Names with the Following Agencies:
Businesses Names are Indexed in our System Using:
- The current indexing standard requires that the information be entered as it appears on the document. “Key It As You See It”
- Prior indexing standards used abbreviations and while the new standards now spell out all words.
- There are still exceptions.
- Where these words appear already abbreviated, they are typed as it appears.
- When initials are part of the name, search with and without spaces between the initials.
- Search using different spellings of words (e.g., two, 2, too, to).
- Search with and without leading articles (e.g., a, the)
- Some examples of types of searches you need to be aware of are:
- Actual company name: The Marketing Department
- Indexed as: The Marketing Department
- Actual company name: A Clean Sweep
- Indexed as: A Clean Sweep
- Minimum Standards for Indexing Real Property.
- This below list of abbreviations may help to locate older documents.
Things you need to know when doing a search:
The following words are abbreviated unless the abbreviation falls as the first word of the non-human or corporate name:
| Word | Abbreviation |
| Incorporated | Inc |
| Corporation | Corp |
| Company(ies) | Co |
| County | Cnty |
| Association | Assn |
| Department | Dept |
| Limited | Ltd |
| And | & |
| Partnership(s) | Ptnr |
| Associate(s) | Assoc |
| Savings and Loan | S&L |
| Mortgage | Mtg |
| Finance | Fin |
| Insurance | Ins |
| Bank and Trust | B&T |
| Condominium | Condo |
The Register of Deeds Information Center is available to help if needed. If you have any questions please contact us at 919-856-5476 or rodinfo@wake.gov.