I have developed a book idea with the main character called Captain Black and I have checked and it is been used before , but is it possible to copyright the name for another use in books (Ie. Sci-Fi and Outerspace ideas and nothing in relation to the idea already used) , as I have a couple of poublishers and I would like to publish the ideas I have already done into a hard-back book or paper-back.

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not unless its used as a franchise or a movie

Generally speaking, no. Titles are not copyright-able. The story you create, however, is. Yes, you can use the name "Captain Black" as your character name, regardless of whether other copyrighted material also contains that name, as long as your character (background, speaking style, history, mannerisms, etc) is not directly lifted from the other material. ~Dr. B.~

Names of characters and titles of books (or anything else) can't be copyrighted. They're short enough that the law takes the view that it's likely that two people could independently come up with the same name or title. You might be able to trademark "Captain Black" as it relates to your stories, which would allow you to stop other people using it in a similar context. However, this is likely to be more trouble than it's worth. It costs quite a lot of money to register a trademark, and you then have to watch for people using it or anything similar. You have to tell them to stop using it, and sue them if they don't. If you don't defend your trademark, it can become generic, meaning that anyone can use it (like "hoover" for any make of vacuum cleaner, or "kleenex" for any brand of tissue). If you do sue, it's far from certain that you'll win, especially since a name as common as "Captain Black" is halfway towards being generic anyway. In short - give him a more distinctive name and stop worrying about it. Incidentally, you don't publish ideas (not in fiction, anyway) - you publish books with ideas in them. I trust this was merely a slip of the keyboard, but if you haven't already got a completed book, you're getting ahead of yourself.

No. You can't copyright names and you can't copyright ideas. Sweetheart, you don't have _any_ publishers, so the less bragging you do the better. Publishers buy completed, polished novels. Not ideas. No, vanity publishers which you plan to use don't count.

There is now you can ciopyright the name. If somebody used the name and used your character, then you could sue them but if someone wanted to use that particular name, you cannot do a thing. There are already two famous Captain's Black. One was the enemy in the Captain Scarlet TV series, and the second was a minor character in Catch-22