Name necklaces or name pendants as they are also called have been around for at least forty years that I can remember. The pendants that I saw before my apprenticeship began were mostly worn by very young girls not even teenagers. They were always plated gold and tended to look a little worn as the girls must have liked wearing them often.

They became popular for a good while in the eighties with teenagers and then disappeared for a long period. The huge success of Sex in the City sparked a monstrous comeback for name necklaces of all sorts. I get people asking me every week for a name pendant just like Carrie. Today we are seeing movie stars and television personalities reading the news wearing them.

I resisted many requests to make them until a young single mother of two hounded me for about a month to make them for her sisters. I make them almost everyday now and they are handmade and very time consuming but the rewards are not just financial as girls and ladies send me emails telling me how much they love them. If you are getting one made make sure that you ask if it is real gold or gold plated. Gold plating will often wear off as it reacts to acids in the skin and as these pendants are worn high up and touching the skin all the time they are susceptible to this reaction. I make some items which are gold plated but I give a 5 year guarantee with it and the plating is deep.

It almost never gets an acid reaction. So be sure to ask about that and guarantees. The next thing to look for is the thickness of the metal. I use gold plate 1.

4mm thick to cut the pendants from. In silver I even use a thicker plate than that as silver is much softer than gold. Now, I see many advertisements for pendants where the thickness is not specified. If you see them ask how thick they are.

I see many which are 0.4mm and 0.7mm thick.

This minor thickness has two problems associated with it: firstly, it is just too thin and will bend easily, and secondly, being as thin as a piece of paper means that it lacks dimension. It probably takes me about 40 minutes to hand polish the edges of these pendants and because of that and the thickness of these edges it has a lovely depth to it so that it shines when you look at it from any direction. Please vist my site Jewellery Express and have a look at what I do and you will then know what to look for. The last thing to look at is how the chain is attached to the pendant. I use small rings and I solder the gaps in these rings so that it can never come apart.

The quicker way to do this is just to close the gap but it may come apart with a bit of wear. I make them with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

Gary Hocking makes custom jewellery of all kinds. He has his own website http://www.jewelleryexpress.com.au