More Snake-Inspired Brand Names, Pleassse

The Year of the Snake is here. It’s the animal that coincides with the Chinese zodiac for Lunar New Year 2025, generally symbolizing the opportunity for wisdom, renewal, and growth.

Leading up to Lunar New Year, many brands take the opportunity to launch campaigns around this annual celebration of good luck and fortune. However, it got me thinking about brand names, specifically snake-inspired names. There aren’t many.

Is there a reason behind this dearth of slithery names? Or is this a python-sized opportunity? Let’s take a look at some existing snake-inspired brand names, from established brands to growing ones – brands that evoke the symbolic serpentine sensibility.

First, What Do Snakes Symbolize?

The answer to this question largely depends on who you ask. Unlike furry, warm-blooded fauna, snakes have different reputations in different parts of the world. Generally speaking, in Western cultures, they often get a bad rap. In Eastern cultures, they are considered to be more complex.

In Chinese culture, the snake is far more than just a creature of the wild–it is a symbol steeped in mystery, wisdom, and complexity. While many cultures across the world associate snakes with danger or evil, the Chinese see the snake in a much more nuanced light. For them, it is a symbol of transformation, intellect, and even divine power. But it’s not all good news–the snake also carries a duality, representing both sacredness and danger.¹

Whatever your view on snakes, one thing is certain: they have some serious staying power. In fact, snakes are one of the oldest symbols in the world.

The Cultural Staying Power of Snakes

Through history and mythology of various ancient cultures, the snake is one of the oldest and most well known symbols in the world.

Ever since Eve’s transgression in the Garden of Eden, snakes in Christian tradition have been associated with lies, evil and temptation. But in other cultures, as far-flung as ancient Greece and Egypt and indigenous North America, snakes symbolize fertility, rebirth, renewal and even immortality. The ouroboros, the ancient symbol of eternity that was famously depicted on King Tut’s tomb in the 14th century B.C., is a serpent devouring its own tail.

From the Aztec god of wind, rain and creation to the semi-divine human-snake creatures that guarded the Buddha, here are 9 Powerful Snakes from History and Mythology. Each has an important role in the culture it represents.²

Here is a quick glance at the nine snakes highlighted in the article above:

• Snake in the Garden of Eden
• Snakes that St. Patrick Drove out of Ireland
• Jormungand, the Viking sea serpent
• Leviathan from the Book of Job
• Medusa and the Gorgons
• Quetzalcoatl
• Naga
• Hopi Snake Dance
• The Legend of the White Snake

Today, snakes still play an important part of decorative arts and design all over the world. Not to mention, its current resurgence in jewelry, fashion, and textile brands is largely due to the 2025 designation as the Year of the Snake. But what about brand names?

A Sample of Snake-Inspired Brand Names

• AC Cobra GT (Roadster & Coupe, sports cars)
• Black Mamba (arguably part of NBA Kobe Bryant’s brand/legacy. RIP.)
• Bulgari’s Serpenti (jewelry collection)
• Cobra Beer (UK beer brand)
• Cobra Golf (golf clubs & gear)
• Cobra Rock (handmade boots from Texas this namer knows & loves)
• Cobra Tools (home improvement focused)
• Copperhead AG (agricultural products)
• Copperhead Beverage Co. (brewery & co-packing business)
• Dodge Viper (American car, 1992-2017)
• King Snake Guitars (made in Japan)
• Pit Viper (sunglasses)
• Python (programming language)
• Viper Spit Brands (craft hot sauces)
• Viper (vehicle security & remote start)
• Whitesnake (English rock “long hair” band)

Without a doubt, there are more snake-inspired brand names out there. However, this list represents a sample of widely known, established brands and a few smaller, growing brands.

Many of these brands are named for large, venomous snakes (Black Mamba, Cobra, Copperhead, Viper) that connote a sense of danger, adventure, strength, stealth, and speed.

Dodge Viper, For Example

Here’s a great story of How the Dodge Viper Got Its Name, as told on MotorTrend.

Tom Gale, who led the design team, and Chris Theodore, who led powertrain, both agree that when the as-yet-unnamed Dodge roadster was in its infancy in the late ’80s, the team knew it wanted a snake-inspired name to honor the Shelby Cobra that so clearly served as its inspiration. Then came a fateful trip to Europe where Gale planned to meet with Giorgetto Giugiaro, the famed Italian designer behind the Ferrari 250 GT, Maserati Marek, DeLorean DMC-12, and MkI Volkswagen Golf, among many other vehicles.

Chrysler, at the time, was working with Giugiaro’s Italdesign on the Eagle Premier, which the design house had styled. And, well, we’ll let Gale tell it from here:

“We had dinner one night, and I said to Giorgetto, we’re looking for a name for a Cobra-like car that we’re doing and asked, ‘What’s a snake name in Italian?’ And he says, ‘Vipera.’ And I said, ‘Shit. Thanks,’ Didn’t need to say much more.

“The next week we had a meeting with [Chrysler president Bob] Lutz and [engineering vice president] Francois [Castaing] and I said, ‘You know Giugiaro said [a snake] name in Italian was Vipera,’ None of us had thought of Viper at that point, and right there, that’s when we had our ‘a-ha!’ moment.”³

The naming fun didn’t end there. According to a 2012 article in BBC’s TopGear (when the Dodge Viper was still in production), each New Dodge Viper gets…a new badge. And each updated badge [graphic treatment of a viper] gets a new name: Sneaky Pete, Fangs, and Stryker.

Parting Thoughts

I believe there’s a wide, winding, creative road of opportunity for brands to embrace snake-inspired brand names – ones that make unexpected connections to the soul of a brand’s positioning.

These could be evocative names that have the power to stand out, such as names that shed the skin of an obvious serpentine connection to reveal greater depths of meaning and metaphor.

After all, the Year of the Snake shows us there’s more to these legendary creatures than meets the eye.

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¹ SHINE, “What does the snake symbolize in Chinese culture?” by Arina Yakupova Jiang Xiaowei, February 2, 2025.

² History, “9 Powerful Snakes from History and Mythology” by Sarah Pruitt, July 27, 2023 (updated).

³ MotorTrend, “How the Dodge Viper Got Its Name” by Christian Seabaugh, April 24, 2020.