Walk down any street in Mumbai and you'll find buildings with exotic sounding names staring back at you.
Mirabilis, Yarrow, Jonquille, Tribecca, Paloma, Tuscano, Beaumonde, Mont Blanc, Beau Rivage, Clarion no, these aren't names that ingenious Catholic parents would choose for their kids. They're just names of residential complexes. Walk down any street in Mumbai and you'll find buildings with these exotic sounding names staring back at you. In fact, some of these names are so unpronounceable that we bet residents must be having a tough time explaining their addresses.
What's in a name, Shakespeare might ask, but builders beg to differ. Says Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director, Hiranandani Group, "We've been using western names for our projects since the last 30 years. Our criteria for the name is based on the personality of the building and the lifestyle it offers."
Abhisheck Lodha, director, Lodha Group, seconds him. He says, "The names we choose are symbolic of the philosophy of lifestyle that we offer."
But while most home-buyers say that the name of the building wouldn't influence their purchase decision, they unconsciously seem to be drawn to fancier names. Says Bhumika Tewari, head programming India, Fun Republic, who stays in a building called Viceroy Court in Thakur Village, Andheri, "I wouldn't choose to buy a house simply because the building name impressed me." But when we asked her to choose between two identical houses in Viceroy Court and say, a building called a Krishna Ganga, she promptly opted for the former.u00a0
Anup Ghosh, a resident of Lake Lucerne in Powai too likes the name of his building. (We were impressed that he knew that a lake by that name existed even before he bought the house.) He says, "Lake Lucerne sounds nice. However, I don't think I bought the flat just for the name of the building. Maybe I liked it more because of the name."
Lodha too concedes that a name isn't enough to woo buyers, but it might evoke their interest. "I don't think any buyer will buy the house for the name but a good name certainly is a value addition," he says.
Well, with names like La Citadel, Casa Bella, looks like the French connection is here to stay. We just hope that our building names don't get so unpronounceable that we need to flash our visiting cards when we are asked our address.
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