Quick answer: Search the iOS App Store catalog for an exact title match — Apple does not allow two apps in the same country storefront to share a title, so an exact match means the name is genuinely taken. Google Play works the opposite way: it does not reserve app names at all, so a Play result tells you how crowded the name is, not whether you can use it. What Play enforces is the package ID, which is globally unique and permanent. Check the name on both stores plus the matching domain and handles in one pass with the App Store Name Checker.
| Namespace | Enforced unique? | What a match means |
|---|---|---|
| iOS App Store title | Yes | Taken — Apple will reject the listing |
| Google Play title | No | Crowded — allowed, but bad for discovery |
| Play package ID / iOS bundle ID | Yes, permanently | Taken forever, even if unpublished |
.com / .app domain |
Yes | Registered by someone else |
| Social handles | Yes | Claimed |
You can spend a weekend on an icon, a landing page and a store listing, and lose all of it to one line in App Store Connect: the app name you entered is already being used. Checking first takes about five seconds. The catch is that the two stores answer the question in completely different ways, and most "app name checkers" quietly pretend otherwise.
Apple enforces unique names. Google does not.
This is the single fact that determines what a check can honestly tell you.
On the iOS App Store, app names are unique per country storefront. If another live app in your storefront already uses your exact title, you cannot ship under it. App Store Connect blocks the metadata. That makes an iOS check definitive — a match is a real, hard "taken", and a clean result is a real "available".
On Google Play, app titles are not reserved at all. Google enforces no uniqueness on the store listing name, which is why you can search Play right now and find several apps called the same thing. A Play "result" therefore measures crowding, not availability. Anyone selling you a Play name availability verdict is selling you something Google does not provide.
What Google does enforce is the application ID — the package name, such as com.acme.notes. It must be globally unique across Play, and once you publish it, Google's own documentation is explicit that it can never be changed and never be reused, by you or anyone else, even after you unpublish the app. That is the Android namespace worth checking, and it is permanent in a way the name never is.
How to check properly, in one pass
- Run the name through both stores. The App Store Name Checker queries the live iOS catalog for an exact collision and, separately, reports how many listings Google Play surfaces for the same name. Two rows, two different meanings — deliberately not merged into one fake verdict.
- Check the package ID. Open Developer details on the checker, or use the Google Play Name Checker directly. It suggests a reverse-domain ID from your domain and gives you a hard available-or-taken answer.
- Check the domain in the same breath. Apple requires a working support URL before it will review your app, and Google Play requires contact details plus a privacy policy URL. You need a domain either way, and the package ID convention assumes you own it.
- Check the handles. If the name survives the stores, claim it on X, Instagram and TikTok before you announce anything.
- Screen the trademark register. Both stores have an IP complaint process that can pull a live listing. Our trademark screener searches the USPTO database — it was built for store names, but the register and the method are the same for software marks. It is a screen, not legal advice, and it is US-only.
What "taken" should make you do
Do not reach for a workaround spelling. Acmee, Acme2 and Acmely all read as knock-offs, all rank badly in store search, and all raise the exact suspicion — imitation of an existing app — that gets listings removed under Apple's and Google's impersonation rules.
Add a real word instead. Get, Try and Use as prefixes; App, HQ, Labs, or the noun your app is actually about as suffixes. AcmeBudget is a better name than Acme2 in every way that matters, including the 30-character title limit you are working within on both stores.
Check the name before you build anything around it
The name is upstream of your icon, your domain, your landing page, your store screenshots and your package ID — and the package ID is the one you can never take back.
Check your app name across both stores →
If you are working through a full launch rather than just the name, the Ship an App path orders every step by how hard it is to undo.
