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If you\u2019ve been following the glossy launches of the newest celebrity and influencer brands, you\u2019ve probably wondered, Did I read that right? Long gone are the days when the name Goop seemed silly or when anyone famous still put her government name on a line of lipsticks or hot sauces. The buzziest new brand names are impossible to pronounce and even harder to remember. Take Syrn, the lingerie line from Sydney Sweeney<\/a>, pronounced \u201csiren.\u201d Or Skylrk, as in \u201csky lark,\u201d a streetwear label from Justin Bieber. One of the most popular new launches at Sephora is a line of lotions from influencer Claudia Sulewski called Cyklar, pronounced \u201csike-lure.\u201d Even the names that are easier to sound out, like Alix Earle\u2019s Reale Actives, are likely to cause headaches.<\/p>\n This new slate of wonky, pseudo-futuristic names is one of the unfortunate outcomes of celebrity brand oversaturation<\/a>. The trend has been building since at least 2024, when Serena Williams launched Wyn Beauty and Beyonc\u00e9 debuted her hair-care line C\u00e9cred<\/a>, pronounced \u201csacred.\u201d Trademark databases are clogged, blocking Instagram handles and forcing entrepreneurial celebrities everywhere to declare war on the dictionary to score their coveted domain names. Suddenly, by comparison, even a name as baffling as the RealReal seems reasonable.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time you have to explain your name, you\u2019re essentially apologizing for it,\u201d says Alexandra Watkins, the founder of naming firm Eat My Words, who named Wendy\u2019s Baconator. Her deal-breakers for names include \u201clooks like a typo\u201d and \u201chard to pronounce.\u201d She has seen all sorts of naming trends come and go, especially among tech start-ups. Remember when everything had an -ify on the end? (Spotify, Shopify, etc.) But Watkins says brand names are getting worse. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to tell your boss that their name idea sucks,\u201d she says. Especially when the boss is a celebrity.<\/p>\n Chris Black, a podcaster and creative consultant, says he recently worked on the launch of a skin-care brand for a client. The team had two names it loved and tentative logo designs until its lawyer vetoed both options. \u201cThere were enough red flags and similar categories that had the same name or a similar name, or it had been dormant for ten years, but we would have to contact them and try to buy it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just too complicated at a certain point.\u201d<\/p>\n That scenario is common, says David Placek, the founder of Lexicon Branding, the agency that named Febreze, BlackBerry, and Sonos. \u201cWe are approaching an inflection point in the difficulty of clearing marks,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I had a dollar for every time someone has said, \u2018Hey, have you thought about star names? Have you thought about Greek gods?\u2019 I\u2019d have an island in the Caribbean.\u201d<\/p>\n These days, when Placek\u2019s agency hands its legal team a list of 100 potential names, it can expect to be left with only about ten \u201csurvivors,\u201d down from more like 50 two decades ago. While Placek doesn\u2019t dislike Syrn quite as much as I do, he agreed that it\u2019s confusing, especially for the category: \u201cThat could be a bank name.\u201d He says a truncated name like Syrn doesn\u2019t solve a trademark problem if someone else is using Siren in the same category because the two words still sound the same. But creative spelling could solve the problem of a URL. Skylark.com is a travel site. Sacred.com is owned by a company that sells domain names. Siren.com is claimed too and is currently for sale for $1.75 million.<\/p>\n Watkins says many founders are still stuck on making sure they land \u201c.com\u201d instead of \u201c.biz\u201d or \u201c.world,\u201d often at the expense of the name of the business. She says today\u2019s shoppers, constantly bombarded with ads, care less about the exact URL and more about memorable, visual names. \u201cThis is what I tell people: Just because it\u2019s creative, doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n In the fashion and beauty space, plenty of brands succeed despite (or, in some cases, because of) their difficult names. Knowing how to say Loewe (lo-weh-vay) is a flex<\/a>, as is knowing that neither Glossier nor Net-a-Porter end with a hard r sound. But dropping vowels or adding a y looks funky, not French.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like a throwback to the early tech internet trend of Flickr, Tumblr, Grindr,\u201d says Sierra Tishgart, the co-founder and former CEO of Great Jones, a line of cookware. Last year, she started a naming agency, Big Name. \u201cYou actually end up just saying, \u2018Oh, that Sydney Sweeney\u2019s brand.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, one-word names are often trickier to trademark or register on Instagram than two-word ones. The 2010s saw dozens of online brands launch with ampersand double names like Serena & Lily and Boll & Branch.\u00a0But as with any trend, the popularity killed the naming convention \u2014 at least for now. Three-word names can quickly turn into \u201cword salad,\u201d as Meghan Markle described the first name<\/a> of her jam brand, American Riviera Orchard. She changed it to As Ever, which, while arguably a better name, is also easy to confuse with the name of her Netflix show that is also named for a twee sign-off: With Love, Meghan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tishgart says the best brand names have a story behind them, which is especially important for celebrity-fronted businesses that advertise a personal touch. \u201cThey should feel like real passion projects. If not, they just simply feel like a money grab,\u201d she says. Using real or stage names is typically out of the question because most celebrities start their skin-care lines with the goal of eventually selling to a larger business and stepping away. No one wants to risk seeing their namesake business being run without their approval, as has happened countless times in fashion to designers including Kate Spade and John Galliano. Instead, they want to copy Jennifer Aniston, who was a \u201cproduct creator\u201d and co-owner of Living Proof when it launched in 2012 and promoted the shampoo line until it sold to Unilever in 2016. The big beauty and apparel conglomerates also prefer that celebrity brands have more neutral names to protect themselves from any ugly associations with a rogue founder. For example, Kat Von D\u2019s popular liquid-eyeliner makeup line rebranded as KVD Vegan Beauty in 2021 after a series of controversial internet spats. By then, she had sold the business and stepped down from any operational role.<\/p>\n Instead of their full name, many celebrities and influencers pick a lesser-known part of their name. Rihanna used her last name, Fenty, for various lines, and Hailey Bieber used her unusual middle name, Rhode, on her beauty brand. (Unfortunately for Sydney Sweeney, her middle name is Bernice. Imagine whipping out your sexy Bernice bustier on date night.)<\/p>\n But even the middle-name route can have its liabilities. A few days after Bieber launched Rhode in 2022, she was sued by a flowery-dress line with the same name. In its lawsuit, the clothing line said Bieber\u2019s lawyers had tried to buy its trademark in 2018<\/a>, indicating the model knew her name choice might be a problem. But instead of taking some liberties with the English language, she went with it anyway. The suit was settled in 2022, and Rhode, the clothing line, shut down at the end of 2024. Last year, Bieber\u2019s Rhode sold in a deal that valued the business at $1 billion.<\/p>\n Black didn\u2019t hit any trademark barriers last year when it was time to open his own menswear line, Hanover, named after the street he grew up on. \u201cIf you come from skateboarding or music or streetwear, the best names are one word,\u201d Black says. Supreme is the ultimate example.<\/p>\n The best names are often, as Black says, \u201cstupid until they\u2019re not.\u201d Like Skims, the clever, memorable name Kim Kardashian\u2019s brand landed on after its first choice, Kimono<\/a>, was publicly shamed for being culturally insensitive. Another example, one that no expensive branding agency could ever have come up with, is LoveShackFancy, a name as kooky and maximalist as its tiered-ruffle flowery dresses.<\/p>\n If the product is good enough, a brand name becomes part of the Zeitgeist and seems fated, even if it once seemed like a risk. Still, Black predicts Syrn will probably be a success despite its unfortunate name. \u201cThe point is the celebrity who can sell it, and the name is pretty secondary, if not third, in the list of things that matter,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard anybody say it out loud until you.\u201d<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n