Naming a Luxury Brand – Here’s How It’s Done

By: Frank DePino | March 23, 2023

Naming a luxury brand is one of the most important yet difficult decisions you’ll ever make for your company. Your name has to be synonymous with style, class, and elegance, and it’s no small task narrowing down your options. How do you come up with a great luxury brand name?

When naming a luxury brand, keep these pointers in mind:

• The name should be easy to remember
• Short and simple is best
• The name must be unique
• The name has to be easy to pronounce 
• The name should be easy to spell

Luxury business names don’t grow on trees. If you’re struggling to come up with a name that embodies your high-end items, we’ll present plenty of naming tips and suggestions ahead. We’ll even share some of our own favorite luxury brand name ideas! 

What Is a Luxury Brand?

Let’s begin with a brief refresher on what entails a luxury brand. 

A luxury brand is all about exclusivity, aesthetics, and quality. Some luxury companies focus more on the rarity of their goods and others less so, but rarity is a quality that can be added to these brands as well.

Due to the aforementioned traits, a high-end brand sells its goods at a premium. Customers, being aware that they’re receiving a unique luxury experience, are willing to pay more money for such an experience.

To them, owning luxury brands is a means of embodying a posh lifestyle and showcasing their exemplary tastes. 

Why Is Your Luxury Brand Name Important?

Now let’s pivot back to naming a luxury brand. Why is it so important that you get the name right?

Well, why is it so important that any brand has the right name? 

Let’s delve into the difference that a good name can make within the high-end market.

It’s Your First Impression

When making a first impression among potential customers, what do you think that impression is? It’s not your website. It’s your name.

Upon hearing your luxury business name, consumers will make a snap judgment of your company. Perhaps that judgment is accurate or perhaps it isn’t, but regardless, that’s the opinion they’ve formulated. Changing it will be very difficult.

Every company wants to make a good first impression, and that’s true of the luxury market as well. If anything, it’s even more critical that your first impression is a good one. 

Your high-end goods command a higher price tag than the norm, so you have to give audiences a means of justifying that higher price tag.

Builds Trust

In creating that strong first impression, your luxury brand name also helps to generate trust among your audience. 

If we mentioned brands such as Adidas, Apple, and Amazon, even though those are companies outside of the luxury sphere, you instantly trust those brands, don’t you? Of course, you do, as they have each become household names.

According to marketing resource Oberlo, up to 46 percent of consumers are willing to pay more money when they feel they can trust a brand.

Brands conjure up powerful imagery. They promise quality and reliability. Lower-named or no-name brands cannot do the same, which leaves consumers wary despite that these smaller brands often have lower prices. 

Strengthens Your Brand

What is a brand without a name? Not much!

Naming a luxury brand allows all the other pieces to fall into place like assembling a puzzle. 

Once you have the name, you can very easily craft a logo, determine your color scheme, select your brand voice, and focus on the other elements that will build an impenetrable brand. 

How to Come Up with a Luxury Brand Name

Now that you better understand the importance of luxury business names, how do you come up with your own? Here are some tips and suggestions to help you get started. 

Brainstorm from a List of Words

Certain words embody luxury, and those are the ones that you’ll want to focus on. 

Per this post on our blog, here is a list of words frequently used in the high-end market that could serve as the basis for your luxury brand name:

• Unique
• Precious
• Tailor-made or tailored
• Exceptional
• Exclusive
• Elegant
• Classic
• Whimsical
• Timeless
• Poised
• Impeccable
• Heritage
• Extraordinary performance
• Cutting edge
• Craftsmanship 

Create a Catchy Acronym

Acronyms roll off the tongue, so they check a lot of boxes for what naming a luxury brand should be. 

The acronym could be the names of your founders, a long word that makes sense to be shortened, or a series of words that mean a lot to your creators. 

Use a Locational Name

The heritage of luxury brands is often tied to specific locations and regions. Why not incorporate a beloved area into your luxury name? 

Translate a Preferred Word into Another Language

The classiness of luxury business names is often due to how exotic they sound, such as Hermes, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton. 

You shouldn’t translate a name just to do it, but only if a translation makes sense and sounds good. 

A word that might not sound great as a brand name in the English language, when translated, now has a new life and could just be your next business name!  

Look at Literature and Mythology

High-end goods and mythology are a match made in heaven. Going back to Hermes, the brand is named after the Greek god of travel, language, sleep, fertility, and trade.

Although not luxury brands, Pandora, Argos, Nike, and Marathon are other brands that used mythology as their naming inspiration.  

Mash Up Several Names

Perhaps your stakeholders are in the midst of a staunch debate over several potential brand names for your luxury business. They like all the names and are having a hard time narrowing it down to just one.

In some instances, it’s appropriate to mash up one or two or possibly even three names into one. Just make sure that the mashed-up name still makes some semblance of sense and is easy to pronounce and spell.

If not, then it will be very difficult for prospective customers to do any research into your brand. They won’t want to talk about your brand either because they’ll be self-conscious about whether they’re pronouncing your name correctly. 

Use a Luxury Brand Name Generator

Are you still wrestling with naming a luxury brand? You can always rely on business name generators. 

How these generators work will vary from one to another, but the basic crux is that you input a series of keywords that embody your unique luxurious experience and then see what the name generator comes up with.

A business name generator can even check domains for availability, which is something you’ll have to do manually when coming up with names using any of the other methods we’ve outlined. 

Even if you don’t love any of the names the name generator has produced, seeing a list of names could get the gears turning and help you come up with your own luxury business name. 

Famous Luxury Brand Names

So too might seeing a list of famous luxury brand names start those creative juices flowing. 

We cherry-picked high-end companies from our brand rankings list and included a series of other luxury brands as well to inspire you.

• Gucci
• Dior
• Chanel
• Hermes
• Louis Vuitton
• Rolex
• Tiffany
• Prada
• Versace
• Ralph Lauren
• Porsche
• Cartier
• Ferrari
• Guerlain
• Burberry
• Celine
• Prada
• Bottega Veneta
• Loro Piana
• Armani
• Estee Lauder
• Balenciaga 
• Christian Louboutin
• Moncler 
• Acne Studios
• Coach 

What Do Luxury Brand Names Have in Common?

If you look at the above luxury brand names, you’ll notice that they share some common threads. Since identifying those threads can help you in naming a luxury brand, let’s talk more about them now.

Short and Simple

Comb through that list above one more time. Most of those luxury brand names are two syllables such as Dior, Chanel, Rolex, Hermes, Prada, Moncler, and Gucci. 

Some such as Coach are a single syllable and many more are just three syllables like Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Tiffany. 

These names are both simple and short, which is beneficial for consumers. 

Easy to Remember

The short duration of the above luxury brand names also makes them easy to remember. 

If you had just heard of Chanel, since it’s a short enough name, it might stick with you more than a longer and more complex brand name. 

Meaningful

Another commonality you’ll see when naming luxury brands is how meaningful the brand names are. 

Many high-end companies name themselves after a founder such as Estee Lauder, Christian Louboutin, and Louis Vuitton.

The ones that don’t might use literature or mythology as the inspiration for their names as we discussed earlier. 

Luxury Brand Name Ideas

As promised, here are some luxury brand name ideas designed to spark your creativity.

• Creed Fashion
• Mourasche
• The Cut Above
• Red Square
• Long Lost Luxury
• Luxnest
• Soma Fine
• Fashomatic
• Sardecia
• Luxwind
• Le Musket
• Victoria Fashion
• Crown Realty
• Lotus Luxury 
• Billionaire Bella

Naming a Luxury Brand: Hire a Luxury Branding Agency Today 

For luxury brand name ideas that will propel your brand forward in the market, you may need the assistance of a luxury branding agency. We’re Mediaboom, and we specialize in delivering ROI and results for the luxury market. To learn more about our services and what we can do for your luxurious brand, contact us today.

By: Frank DePino

Frank DePino is Principal and Founder of Mediaboom. Since 2002, Frank has led Mediaboom’s award-winning staff of creative and technical professionals building the most effective marketing and advertising solutions for its clients.