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Do you name your motorbikes?

Triumph Bonneville T100 bike name

Do you have a name for your motorbike or refer to it as a male or female?

You are not alone!

I’ve never named a bike, probably because I’ve never held on to them for anything more than a couple of years.

Had I named any of my bikes, I might not have been so fickle and sold them so quickly.

Well, that’s not entirely true, I did have a Suzuki SDV650 for a while that was referred to as “Suzi” and my 2010 Triumph Bonneville T100 was “the Bonnie” and my 2016 Ducati Scrambler Icon is simply “the Duc”.Ducati Scrambler Icon

However, those are simply abbreviations for convenience, not affectionate names.

My wife sometimes referred to a Honda CX500 project bike I had as “Rhonda the Honda”, but I never used that term, either.

Honda CX500
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Male and female bikes

However, many riders name their bikes with a male or female moniker.

I’m not sure how they decide whether a bike is a male or female.

Anatomically, they seem to have parts resembling both genders.

You might think men prefer to ride bikes with “female bikes” and women like to ride “male bikes”, but I’ve also heard of males riding bikes with male names and females riding bikes with feminine names.

And for reasons of sexism or stereotyping, I won’t go into why one gender is more appropriate over the other for a bike that is muscular, or cantankerous, or unreliable, or fast, or “sexy”.

Women female nameNaming advice

I found a great word of advice about naming your bike from HappyWrench.com.

They say that, like a tattoo, “don’t name the bike after a girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, boyfriend, or ex-girlfriend”.  

“Avoid something contentious or that could potentially become contentious,” they claim, and it’s sound advice!

Colours are fairly common nicknames for motorbikes: Red Devil, Blue Terror, Yellow Peril, Black Beauty, Mighty Whitey, Green Machine and Cherry Bud.

And brand abbreviations or derivations are also common: Beemer, Bonnie, Duc, Hog, Kato, Kwaka, Suzi, Trumpy and Yammie.

  • Do you name your bike? Tell us how you choose it and how you decided on its sex? Please send us photos of your titled motorbike.
  1. had my harley for 39 years and never been tempted.
    i have no wish to appear a total dickhead

  2. A friend of mine named his Harley “Brutus” (and when he sold it the buyer was going to keep the name).

    My bike doesn’t have a name but I sometimes refer to it as “my fat bottomed girl”.

  3. Reminds me of one few years back named “heap of crap wont start”

  4. All my bikes are female since I don’t want to ride a man.
    My first bike, a GS500, was named Slappy, for it was a slapper.
    Second bike, 08 Street Triple, is named Ange, after Angelina Jolie who rode the same bike in Salt.
    Third bike, Ducati 1098, is named Daisy – Daisy Duc.
    Fourth bike, BMW Sertão, is named Sabrina, a Portuguese name like the Brazillian desert the bike was named for.

  5. I call my Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 ‘Utzi the Guzzi’ because a previous owner took it into the Italian Alps. Thankfully, unlike its namesake it made it back down again.

  6. I have a V-Star XVS 1100 Custom that had the rego “110MC”. Naturally, I named him “Hammer” after the rapper, MC Hammer. I have since moved interstate and obtained personalised plates which carry on the MC Hammer theme. Hammer suits him perfectly.

  7. My Tiger XRT is Shere Khan – I guess I liked the Mowgli tales when I was a kid – it’s definitely male. Previous bike was Bonnie (female) and the one prior to that was “The Bull” a Royal Enfield, of course!

  8. ‘Max’ is a C650 Sport BeeEmm scoot and ‘Paul’ a 1150GS … Why? well, obviously too much time doing long cruises and with no music other stuff pops into mind, so these popped and stuck. Helps to have ‘conversations’ on a previous 25.000 km ride on the GS and my forthcoming 7000 km ride on the scoot

  9. My DL1000 vStrom goes by the name ‘Mal’ – no one hardly ever gets it …

  10. My Harley is called ‘Taylor’ – because it’s swift and it’s the only way I’ll ever ride …. you get the idea 🙂

  11. yep on naming,it just happens I guess,…I did a deal with a mate in Wauchope Doctor Dan) that kept his bike so shiny it was called ‘the tart’,..i live in the bush,so then it had to have a country and western name,..so we called her the ‘dusty tart’ !!?? 🙂

  12. My single cylinder 4-stoke Suzuki’s have all been named “Mudguts” I II III IV V VI after a Mad Max character.
    My black BMW R80 was; “Black Betty” (bam-ba-lam) after the obvious record.
    The GSX 1400 was “Sleipnir” after Odin’s powerful eight legged horse.
    My current ride is “Alsvinn”, meaning ‘The Speedy.’ (Alsvinn was one of the two Norse mythological horses that pulled the chariot containing the sun around the world every day.) I was able to get a plaque engraved with the name in Runic script put on the back of the bike and it’s a head scratcher/ conversation starter.

  13. Hey, it is Chris from HappyWrench. Sorry for being so late to the party and only finding this shout-out now! I want to say thanks. That particular post on my site was one of my favorites. My Shovelhead “Cal” is like a dear friend at this point and when I named him, it just felt right. Anyways, stay in touch. I will be back!

  14. Just bought and red Harley Softail Deluxe but didn’t want “Cherry” or “Ruby”. Someone close to me that passed away had a little red truck that he called “Reba” so I carried on the tradition.

  15. I named my beginner bike (2018 KTM 390 Duke) Katy abbreviating KTM, people find it kinda funny since it really doesn’t fit the extremely aggressively styled bike

  16. hello I recently purchase my first real motorcycle I need Lloyd after my late uncle he went by the name Bob he was a bad dude so I figured fitting to name my 2014 Dyna Fat Bob fxdf after him because they are both some bad mofos

  17. I call my mate’s KTM RC8 the Tangerine Torpedo

    I’m trying to think of a nickname for my other friend’s Aprilla V4, which is even more insane that the KTM

  18. I call my bike Hima, short for Himalayan which is the name of my type of bike, the Royal Enfield Himalayan

  19. I named my 2015 HD Low Rider “Spudzilla” because she was a beast and went “potato, potato, potato”. I’ve now named my Softail Street Bob “Lady Liberty”, for obvious reasons.

  20. Named my ’76 750 Bonneville “Ethyl Benzine” in retaliation for my mate calling his Suzuki 1000 “Jenny” coz of a piece of “tail” he wanted (didn’t get her) and my mate always talking about “Bonne” like she was a person. “Going to Frankston with Bonne” & “going to the pub with Bonne” you’re not fooling anyone son. ( p.s. still have Ethyl bought her new, I subscribe to the dictum “If it has tits or wheels, it’s gonna be trouble” Hahaha

  21. Further comment..My 2009 Harley Iron I called “Ebony” because she was black beautiful & proud, , the 2012 Harley 48 is “Skinny Minnie”, my chopped Triumph 650 was “Esme”, my ’71 Shovelhead “Eleanor” (Roosevelt) one tough lady, the 860 Ducati that took me to Perth and back “The Duchess” the other bikes went nameless…they didn’t impress….

  22. Hi I’m Nandan. Name of my Duke 250 is BLOODY BERETTA. I consider my vehicles are female even though i am a male.

  23. I call my BMW750GS Jim Beemer. My brother who rode all the time, name is Jim… I ride for him now and Beemer… well you get it. Goes without saying, the two of get around!

  24. I named my triumph “Your Dad” because it doesn’t matter what you say.. it makes me giggle.

    I rode your dad. I came on your dad. I went full throttle riding your dad. I got wet riding your dad.

    All for my own entertainment.

  25. I love my bike (Harley). I will clean it and polish it. I will scrub my whitewall tires until they are whiter than white. I will ride it lots and lots, including some great European trips. (50,000 miles for a 7 yr old bike).

    But it’s a thing. It has no name.

  26. I call my Z900 Mister Zed, a play on the old TV series Mister Ed because it’s my dual wheeled Stallion, so far it hasn’t started talking to me though

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