Why is it called Booblinka Jewellery?

I've been asked so many times over the years where the name Booblinka came from.

And yes, I know what it looks like in English.

I've had people assume I make breast jewellery, and I even had one person ask me if I pierce boobs 🙈.

I don't.

The actual meaning couldn't be more different.

In Czech, bublinka means a little or tiny bubble.

The real story goes back to 2017, when jewellery was still just a hobby for me.

We were visiting my sister in Prague and my husband Simon and I were talking about what I could call my jewellery. I wanted something that somehow brought Czech and English together.

Simon asked me what I liked.

I said bubbles.

He asked me how you say that in Czech and I told him bublinka.

Bublinka means a little or tiny bubble in Czech.

Simon tried to say it and what came out sounded more like “bablinka”.

I didn't like that at all.

So we started playing around with the spelling. We changed the u to a double oo, because when an English speaker reads Booblinka, it sounds much closer to the Czech bublinka.

And that was it.

Booblinka.

Of course, Simon immediately made the joke about the word boob too, so that part has been there pretty much since day one.

The funny thing is that I recently found the old photos from that trip.

One of them is literally a photograph of a computer screen while we were trying Booblinka in different fonts. We found one we liked because even the letters looked like little bubbles.

The photo is dated 26 October 2017.

So apparently I can now tell you almost exactly when Booblinka got its name.

Then I found another old photograph dated 24 November 2017.

My first Booblinka jewellery boxes had arrived.

Looking at those photos now is quite strange.

At the time I wasn't creating a brand story. Jewellery was a hobby and we were simply trying to find a name I liked.

I certainly wasn't thinking about what that name might mean nearly nine years later.

But I think that's the part of the story I love most now.

Because the bubbles never went away.

I've always loved them.

I love their perfect round shape and how every one can be a different size but still somehow perfect.

And I love being underwater.

When you dive beneath the surface and breathe out, or simply move through the water, suddenly there are bubbles everywhere. We create them without even thinking about it.

I still find that a little bit miraculous and fascinating.

And when I look at my jewellery now, I see bubbles everywhere too.

Not because I decided that my business was called Booblinka and therefore I should start putting bubbles into everything.

I don't think I consciously planned any of it.

They simply appeared.

You can see them in the tiny gold granules I add to my jewellery.

You can see them in the round shapes I make.

And sometimes they're literally there. Some of the gemstones I use have tiny bubbles trapped inside them, which I absolutely love.

 

Then there is the ocean.

When I chose the name Booblinka in Prague all those years ago, I couldn't have known how much the ocean would eventually become part of both my life and my jewellery.

Now I live and make my jewellery in Newquay, with the Atlantic right here.

So much of what I make is connected to water, movement and the shapes I see around me.

And somehow that little Czech word we chose years ago still fits.

Probably more than it did then.

Booblinka has changed a lot since those first jewellery boxes arrived in 2017.

So have I.

Jewellery stopped being a hobby. I learnt, experimented, made mistakes, developed my skills and gradually worked out what I really wanted my jewellery to be.

And today I'm particularly drawn to movement.

My spinning necklaces move when you touch them.

The gemstones in HALO move through the centre. I love jewellery that isn't completely static — something you can interact with as well as wear.

But through all of those changes, the bubbles have somehow stayed.

The little gold granules.

The round shapes.

The tiny bubbles trapped inside some gemstones.

And the actual bubbles surrounding me when I'm underwater.

None of this was part of some clever plan Simon and I came up with in Prague in 2017.

He asked me what I liked.

I said bubbles.

He couldn't pronounce bublinka.

And somehow, from that very ordinary conversation, Booblinka began.

Nearly nine years later, I don't think I could have chosen a name that fits me and my jewellery better.

So now you know what Booblinka really means.

A little bubble. 🫧

Marketa x