For more than a decade, jewelry branding was shaped by a single aesthetic: short, soft, minimal names like Mejuri, Oura, Aurate, Vrai – sleek, often whisper-light syllables engineered for DTC (direct-to-consumer) efficiency. These names were perfect for the era that produced them: frictionless, neutral, exquisitely behaved.
But that world has vanished.
Today, both consumer taste and trademark reality have shifted so dramatically that trying to launch the next Mejuri style name is almost guaranteed to fail – culturally, legally, or both.
What is happening now is a tectonic shift in jewelry naming styles that every jewelry or lifestyle founder should be aware of.
The Millennial Era: Smooth, Minimal, and Optimized
Millennial jewelry names were crafted for an age obsessed with ease and polish. Their architecture became unmistakable:
- 4–6 letters
- vowel-forward
- soft consonants
- a faintly European quality
- abstract, premium, deliberately neutral
These names were designed to glide. They avoided edges, texture, and even meaning. They sat beautifully inside beige Instagram grids and hyper-curated brand systems because they asked nothing of the consumer. They were the linguistic equivalent of silk: euphonious to the ear, tastefully luxurious.
But if you’re hoping to register a name like Mejuri today – something abstract, vowel-forward, with minimal syllables – you’re out of luck. The same is true for ultra-short, real or “almost-real” names like Kinn, which slipped through at a time when the USPTO wasn’t nearly as congested.
Here’s why names of this style went from merely difficult to secure to effectively impossible.
Legal Gridlock: Trademark Congestion
As founders kept generating 4-6 syllable, vowel-forward constructions, the USPTO grew saturated with similar-sounding marks. With so much phonetic overlap, “likelihood of confusion” refusals spiked. But this was just the first phase of the squeeze. Three additional forces soon arrived that closed off this style entirely:
- 1 – A flood of China-based filings in these constructions – many incentivized by subsidies, or padded with fabricated “specimens of use” – hit the USPTO hard, especially in trademark classes covering jewelry and fashion.
- 2 – An explosion of unregistered micro-brands – Etsy jewelers, TikTok Shops, Instagram boutiques, and small indie studios – also gravitated toward this style, increasing competition and elevating potential common-law collisions.
3 – The rise of global digital storefronts enabled brands to sell across borders without filing trademarks outside their home jurisdiction, multiplying potential common-law issues.
Taken together, these forces have made this naming lane extremely difficult to navigate. Anyone pursuing a name in this style faces a long and unpredictable trademark journey.
Fortunately for modern brand builders, interest in these abstract, hyper-minimalist names has faded – they now feel culturally dated. And the reason for this is simple: Gen Z, emerging both as founders and as buyers in the general and bridal jewelry space, has moved in a completely different aesthetic direction.
Gen Z Loves Story, Texture, and Expressiveness
Raised on fandoms, gaming worlds, folklore, maker culture, and TikTok micro-aesthetics, Gen Z gravitates toward names that carry:
-
- texture
- story
- craft (the artist’s hand)
- personality
- place (often nature)
- lineage
- lore
This is why you see them responding so strongly to names – across both bridal and non-bridal jewelry – like Stone and Strand, WWAKE, Wolf Circus, Digby & Iona, Enhabiten, Spinelli Kilcollin, Meadowlark, Welford Jewelry, Marrow Fine, Catbird, Sofia Kaman, Mociun, and Local Eclectic.
In sound and sense, these names are worlds away from minimalist monikers like Mejuri, Aurate, Oura, Vrai, Lune, or Brielle. And while not every Gen Z-leaning name is a good name – plenty do miss the mark – the aesthetic shift is unmistakable.
Aesthetic Orientation and Trademark Reality Have Finally Synced
Even more surprisingly – and much to the relief of naming specialists and IP attorneys everywhere – Gen Z is open to longer names.
To them, compounds and multi-word constructions feel handcrafted, expressive, and refreshingly un-corporate. In fact, several of our Gen Z clients have said that our own agency name – with its natural imagery and hint of narrative – captures exactly the kind of name they’re looking for.
And herein lies the beauty: these lengthier, more evocative names fall into less congested trademark territory.
Takeaway for Founders
All that said, naming trends shift fast, and what feels fresh now can look dated in a decade. We’ve already cycled through hyper-minimalist, invented vowel-heavy, and ultra-sleek tech-inspired styles – each having its moment before getting overplayed.
For a name to resonate today, it needs to rise above those earlier styles. But that doesn’t mean founders should chase whatever’s trending. A name endures because it has intrinsic sound and sense: clarity of meaning, a pleasing mouthfeel, and a semantic shape sturdy enough to carry evolving cultural associations. Those are the qualities that turn today’s new names into tomorrow’s classics.
And at River + Wolf, that’s exactly the kind of name we encourage and love to develop.
