Luxury estate names: why do Hong Kong developers choose such crazy ones?
A residence should sound like a residence, not a rapper, or an ego trip for the wealthy, or a seabird’s flights of fancy
It’s not uncommon in Hong Kong to run into people with peculiar English names. I’ve come across a hairdresser called Devil, a colleague who goes by the name Silence, an acquaintance called Money, a high-school classmate named Kinki … the list goes on.
As weird as these may sound to some, they are fine by me. People can call themselves whatever they want.
Lately, however, this trend has spread to luxury properties. You would expect that, with the substantial resources at their disposal, developers could come up with monikers that make sense but the recent rash of names has made me wonder.
Whoever named Sun Hung Kai Properties’ latest project might be an avid ornithologist. Wings At Sea I, Wings At Sea II and Ocean Wings, all in Tseung Kwan O, evoke images of seagulls soaring above the waves. The two properties in the development that do not have sea views are named simply The Wings IIIA and The Wings IIIB.
