Officials told Kyodo News that the Organising Committee will open the process to those with "knowledge and experience" not just of creative writing, but also of dealing with trademarks.

This will follow the selection of the mascot designs, which will be determined through a public competition open to Japanese citizens and non-Japanese people residing in Japan.

The winner of the competition is expected to have some say in the selection of the name, according to Kyodo News.

A Commission established to pick the Tokyo 2020 mascots, chaired by Japan's Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Ryohei Miyata, met for the first time in January with the panel focused on engaging the public in the process.

It was tasked with drawing up eligibility criteria for entering the mascots competition, as well as the detailed schedule of the selection process.

Also in its remit was the job of coming up with ways in which to choose from the entries before deciding on the identity of the mascots.

The panel's sixth meeting, held today, was due to be its last, but it has been decided that the details of the process will continue to be finalised.

These must be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) by the end of this month.

"We discussed the possibility of asking the public about the name of the mascots, but as you know, it’s a much tougher task (than the design) when it involves trademark rights," Yoshiko Ikoma, the panel's vice-chairwoman, told Kyodo News.

"We'll concentrate on the naming once the design is decided.

"We’ve yet to discuss how to choose the people who will decide the name, but we have to overcome the trademark issue both in Japan and abroad.

"We need more than a name that sounds cute.

"It’s not so simple."

Organisers established the Commission in December as they aimed to avoid the controversy surrounding their logo in 2015.

The initial design by Kenjiro Sano had to be scrapped due to allegations of plagiarism, after Belgian Olivier Debie claimed that it resembled his Théâtre de Liège logo too closely.

The process of choosing a replacement was also criticised.

Nearly 15,000 entries were received in an open contest to pick the new emblem, with the Commission again being led by Miyata.

This was in contrast to the first time round when only those who had won a specific design award were allowed to take part.

Allowing the public to get involved was seen as a way of spreading the Olympics across Japan, but others argued that this impacted negatively on the quality of the eventually selected designs.

In December 2015, the American Institute of Graphic Arts urged Tokyo 2020 to scrap the open contest and said that a "remarkable" design could only be the result of a professional designer working directly with their client.

The eventual winner, designed by Asao Tokolo, a graduate of Tokyo Zokei University with a degree in architecture, received a mixed response when it was unveiled in April.

Tokyo 2020 announced last month that the mascots will be unveiled in summer 2018.