Does anyone have any advice for searching to see if someone has already used a particular name.

Im developing a simple breakout clone to help hone in my abilities and talents as an indie developer, and its almost finished. I came up with the name super smashball, but it seems like it would be a game thats already been taken.

Ive searched around on google, but I cant find anything. Can I really be sure its not taken though?

One technique I've used before is to search for domain names that are free. There are a number of sites that help you do this - one I've used before is called www.nameboy.com (http://www.nameboy.com/). You can enter one or two words and it will give you a bunch of suggestions based around those names and tell you if the sites are taken.

Be sure to search download.com and google for it. You can never be 100% sure, but if google can't find it you're reasonably safe that no one is using the name. :)

Cheers!
Graeme

If you can't find a name quickly in Google you're probably okay. Quite a few games have duplicate names I've discovered.

Unless you pick a name that is a current trademark/hit movie and/or owned by a company who likes to sue, you could probably get away with duplicating a name.

Presumably classic titles like Space Invaders and Pac Man have owners who want to preserve the integrity of the name but I'm pretty sure that those budget 8-bit tape games are fair game. I had 2 games called Terminator that were nothing to do with the film.

Mark

Call it something that no-one could possibly have used before .. like :

"Cosmic Geek's Super Duper Mega Game"

Try google, MobyGames (www.mobygames.com) and the USPTO trademark database at www.uspto.gov.

If none of those register a match, you should be OK.