ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Lorena Pérez-Hernández
University of La Rioja, Logroño (La Rioja), Spain

David Huguet Varea
Atica Redex, Navarra, Spain

A COGNITIVE APPROACH TO COMMERCIAL BRAND NAMES OF BASIC AND LUXURY PRODUCTS

For citation
Pérez-Hernández, L., & Huguet Varea, D. (2026). A Cognitive Approach to Commercial Brand Names of Basic and Luxury Products. Voprosy onomastiki, 23(1), 116–139. https://doi.org/10.15826/vopr_onom.2026.23.1.005

Received on 3 February 2025
Accepted on 4 October 2025

Abstract: While the global branding industry increasingly relies on sophisticated naming strategies, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain under-researched from a linguistic perspective. This study addresses this gap by investigating the pervasiveness and productivity of conceptual operations and conceptual interaction patterns — specifically metaphors, metonymies, metaphtonymies, and metonymic chains — in the branding of basic versus luxury products. Utilizing a corpus of 200 brand names (100 basic/utilitarian and 100 luxury products), the research employs a Cognitive Linguistics framework to determine how the nature of a product influences its naming strategy. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal a predominant reliance on metonymy (79.84%) over metaphor (20.16%) across both categories. This preference is attributed to the cognitive efficiency of metonymic operations, which maximize communicative effects with minimal cognitive cost. However, significant asymmetries emerge when comparing product types. Basic products (namely, water and milk) primarily utilize simpler metonymic chains and domain reduction operations to emphasize origin and naturalness while maintaining a low cognitive load. Conversely, luxury products (namely, wine and chocolate) exhibit higher conceptual complexity, showing a significantly greater frequency of metaphtonymies and comparison-based metaphors. These complex patterns serve to imbue luxury items with additional emotional and evaluative attributes that justify their premium status and price. The findings demonstrate that brand naming is not a random creative process but is systematically grounded in cognitive operations tailored to the product’s market category. This research contributes to both cognitive onomastics and marketing theory by providing empirical evidence of how specific conceptual interaction patterns are strategically deployed to steer consumer interpretation and brand differentiation.

Keywords: commercial onomastics; cognitive semantics; brand names; naming; conceptual operations; conceptual interaction

Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. #895-2021-1016).

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