Bare Name Necklace

Delicate and deeply personal, the Bare Name Necklace turns your own name into something you wear every day. Minimalist floating letters, cut clean from solid 14k gold and set on a fine chain, with nothing else competing for attention.

There are no stones here and none are needed. This is the piece you fasten in the morning and forget about until someone asks about it, which they will.

✦ The Gold

• Metal: Solid 14k gold all the way through. Not plated, not gold-filled, not vermeil.
• Karat: 14k is 58.5 percent pure gold, alloyed for strength. Pure 24k is far too soft to hold letterforms this fine without bending out of shape.
• Finish: High polish across the face of every letter, so light travels along the name rather than stopping on it.
• Weight: Kept intentionally light. The letters are cut thin enough to float on the chain and never drag at the back of your neck.
• Because the gold is solid, the surface can be professionally re-polished in ten years and come back looking new. Plating cannot do that. It wears off.

✦ Metal & Construction

• Available in yellow or white gold.
• Chain lengths of 16", 18" and 20". Sixteen inches sits at the base of the throat, twenty falls just below the collarbone.
• Made from 3 to 10 letters. Longer names are spaced so they stay legible instead of crowding together.
• Each letter is cut, filed and finished individually, then joined so the name lies flat against the skin instead of rolling forward.
• Closed with a lobster claw and an extender chain, so you can shorten the length by an inch or two depending on the neckline.

✦ How to Wear It

Alone at 16", against a bare neckline or an open collar, is the cleanest version. The name is the whole point, so give it room.

For layering, take the 20" and let a shorter chain sit above it. It also works underneath the Diamond Tennis Necklace: the diamond line sits high and bright, your name sits below it in quiet gold. Avoid pairing it with anything equally wordy. One personal piece per neckline reads as intention. Two reads as clutter.

✦ Why Solid 14k Gold

• It will not wear off. There is no thin layer of gold to rub away at the clasp or along the letters, because the gold goes all the way through.
• It will not turn your skin green or trigger the nickel reaction that plated and gold-filled pieces cause as their coating thins.
• It holds real value. Solid gold is a material with a floor price, which is not true of anything plated.
• It can be repaired, resized and re-polished for as long as you own it. A snapped chain or a bent letter is a fix, not a loss.

✦ Perfect For

• The first piece of real fine jewelry you buy yourself, with your own money, in your own name.
• Everyday wear at work, where something quiet and personal reads better than something loud.
• Wearing a name you chose. A new surname, a name you took back, or the one you actually go by.
• Travel, because it is light, low-profile and does not need a case of its own.
• Building a layered neckline over time, starting with the piece that means the most.

✦ Care & Longevity

• Solid 14k gold does not tarnish or fade. It only needs cleaning.
• Wash with warm water, a drop of mild soap and a soft toothbrush, paying attention to the inside curves of the letters where lotion collects and dulls the polish.
• Put it on last, after perfume, hairspray and sunscreen. Take it off before swimming, since chlorine attacks the alloys in gold over time.
• Store it flat rather than dropped in a dish. Fine chains knot quickly, and a knotted chain under tension is how they break.

✦ Made to Order

Every Bare Name Necklace is cut for your order in your chosen name, length and gold color. Nothing is pulled from a shelf. Expect it within 4 to 5 weeks, often sooner if the chain and gold you chose are already in stock.

• Pricing by letter count: $700 covers names of up to 4 letters. Each letter beyond that adds $75. A 7 letter name is $925, a 10 letter name is $1,150.
• Available from 3 to 10 letters.
• Personalized pieces are final sale and cannot be returned or exchanged. Please check your spelling, capitalization and spacing carefully before ordering. We make exactly what you type.
• Non-personalized AVRA orders are returnable within 20 business days of delivery for store credit, unless stated otherwise under product.