It’s almost never easy to understand the cryptic letters and numbers that are often inscribed on motorcycles. That applies not only to passer-bys, but also, at times, to the very people who ride the bikes. And that’s because, unlike carmakers, companies in the business of making motorcycles almost never care about giving their products easy-to remember names.
Putting together a comprehensive list of motorcycle designations is a painstaking, long, and complex endeavor, and it would ultimately be boring to read, so we’re not going to do that. Instead, we will try here to give riders and non-riders alike some answers to their most pressing questions.
As most of you are probably aware, many bike makers rarely give their rides names that can have meaning for most of us. Instead, they use numbers and letters as conventions to tell certain machines apart from others, or to highligth a bike’s place in a segment, or product family, or something along those lines. And from time to time, that can lead to confusion and controversy among riders.
All in all, I can only hope that after reading this you would have learned at least one or two new things. But, if you happen to have information that can shed some more light on the topic, don’t be shy to share it. After all, sharing is caring.
Proper names
When it comes to naming motorcycle names, it seems like there are two sides: one group favors the use of abstract letters and numbers, while the other likes an organic approach, going for more humane model of names. While this is obviously not a matter of right way or wrong way, I am pretty certain you found yourself at least once in a situation when someone was saying something about a Ninja, while others referred to it as the ZX.
I’m part of the group of people who prefer names, the ones with letters that form a meaning. Just think about how easy it is to remember things like Hayabusa, Ninja, Fireblade, Intruder, and what an impact they have when spoken in a crowd. The names also make it impossible to mistake one for the other - you’d have to be a complete bike noob to mistake the Hayabusa for a chopper or believe that Sportster stands for an actual sport bike.
Photo: Kawasaki
If you look at the industry as a whole, you’ll notice there are only a handful of bike makers who like to bestow proper names on their rides. Coincidentally or not, this predisposition has to do to the countries these bike makers operate from.
Over in the U.S., the two major companies producing two-wheelers, Harley-Davidson and Indian, like names over codes, at least when it comes to the public side of their business.
Harley-Davidson presently sells bikes in five major families, and all the bikes that are part of them have common names. Ok, maybe not common, because it’s not every day one gets to use the words Street Glide, Fat Boy, or Pan America, but at least they are words people can understand and relate to.
There is, of course, the other side of Harley-Davidson, the one that is for internal use, and true connoisseurs uses codes. In fact, the company has done so for a very long time now, and it actually started selling bikes this way.
These codes are still in use, and even according to Harley itself they make for a sort of alphabet soup that’s not easy to understand. The letter used (Harley does not used numbers) are there to represent the platform or family the bike belongs to.
Below you’ll find a list of Harley internal codes, and their not-so-hidden meanings.
Photo: KTM
F - bikes powered by a Big Twin engine
FL - touring of softail motorcycles wearing a 16-inch front wheel
FLH - touring or softail motorcycle with a fork-mounted fairing or windshield
FLTR - Road Glide
FXD - Dyna
FXST - softail motorcycles with a 19- or 21-inch front wheel
LW - LiveWire (this one no longer applies, as LiveWIre is its own separate brand now)
R - motorcycles powered by the Revolution Max engine
SE - CVO motorcycles
SE - Screamin’ Eagle
VRSC - V-twin racing street custom (V-rods powered by the Revolution engine
XG: street motorcycles
XL: Sportster motorcycles powered by the Sportster Evolution engine
On its side of the aisle, Indian uses proper words to name its bikes as well. On the surface, we know of things like the Springfield, Chieftain, Challenger, or Roadmaster. Although it probably has internal codes for its bikes as well, India’s are not as visible as the one used by its rival.
There are a couple of motorcycle names that need a closer look, though. The FTR, for instance, is marketed as such, and it’s an acronym that stands for flat track racing. The Scout Sixty, on the other hand, is named so in reference to the bike’s displacement in cubic inches.
I said earlier that bike makers like to use names or codes depending on the countries they operate from. Italians, at least the bigger ones like Ducati and MV Agusta, like names too, but they often mix them up with numbers that generally denote the engine’s displacement in cubic centimeters. Others, like Aprilia or Benelli, don’t shy away from using codes, and will get to what to look for in such a nomenclature in the lines below.
Numbers and letters
As usual when it comes to companies responsible for making many products, bike makers started naming their bikes in more industrial ways as a means to differentiate between various line-ups and families. That mostly happened over the past few decades, as up until the 1970s or so there weren’t all that many motorcycle models on the market.
As more and more bike models appeared, and as each model started being offered in various trim options, companies started using internal factory codes. Probably because it was easier this way, those same factory codes started being used commercially. And guess what, people didn’t mind all that much.
Photo: Suzuki
Generally speaking a bike name these days comprises one or more letters, which more often than not attest to the bike's class, family, or segment, a number, and at times even a full word to round everything off. Everybody knows that most of the time the numbers in a bike’s name are there to advertise the displacement of the engine, and the full word is there to appeal to riders in specific markets.
For one reason or another it is the Japanese bike makers that mostly like to use this rather hard-to-grasp combination of letters, numbers, and words. All of the three major ones, meaning Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki, have adopted this approach, and that kind of makes Japanese motorcycles very distinguishable in their world.
For instance, in the case of Suzuki, bikes such as the GSX-R1000R, GSX-S1000GT, or DR-Z400SM, proudly and openly wear the engine size in their names. But you do have to admit, though, that it is the properly-named bikes people recognize the most. After all, who hasn't heard about the Hayabusa, Katana, Boulevard, or V-Strom?
But what are those codes Suzuki uses for its bikes? You can find the list of codes below:
GSX (Grand Sport eXperimental) – sport motorcycles with four-stroke engines
SV (Sporty V-Twin, Superior Value, Simple and Versatile) – motorcycles powered by V-twin engines
DR (dual ride) – dual sport motorcycles
RM (racing machine) – two-stroke motorcycles
Kawasaki too likes to mix things around, and it too plays with both proper names, but also with letters and numbers. On the easy side of the business, we have hit motorcycles such as the many Ninjas, the Eliminator, and the Vulcan. But there are simpler codes used for some of Kawasaki’s motorcycles. Here’s what they mean:
Photo: BMW Motorrad
Z- standard/naked motorcycles.
W - vertical-twin motorcycles
KLR – four-stroke dual sport
KLX – four-stroke trail motorcycles
KX – motocross motorcycles
Of all three major Japanese bike makers, Honda seems to be the most fond of using proper words to name its motorcycles. In doing so, it gave birth to some instantly recognizable icons of the vehicular world: Gold Wing, Fury, Rebel, Africa Twin, among others. At times, the words are accompanied in the bike’s name by a number representing engine displacement.
Honda, too, uses codes instead of names on some of the bikes it makes, but because the codes are so powerful, they are instantly recognizable. Here’s what they each stand for:
CBR (Cross-Beam Racer, City Bike Racer) – sport motorcycles
CB (City Bike) – standard motorcycles
CRF – close ratio four-stroke motorcycles
NC (New Concept) – street motorcycles
NX (New X-over) – dual sport motorcycles
XR - four-stroke off-road motorcycles
Over in Austria, a bike maker by the name KTM has perhaps the most confusing naming approach there is in this industry. And by that I mean there are mostly only seemingly random letters and numbers in the KTM bikes names. The exceptions are the Adventure travel bikes, and the Super Duke sports tourer and naked bikes.
The numbers represent, naturally, engine displacement, while the letters place a product in a specific family. Since there are two-stroke, four-stroke, and electric bikes in KTM’s portfolio, the company differentiates between the breeds by adding an extra F letter for four-strokes, and an E for the electric bikes in each family.
Photo: Suzuki
KTM offers at the time of writing the following types of motorcycles:
SX – motocross
EXC - enduro
SMT – sport tourer
SMC and SMR – supermoto
RC – supersport
German bike maker BMW is also known for using a variety of other letter combinations, although it doesn'y shy away from using proper names either (Transcontinental, anyone?). GS, for instance, the designator for a series of very impressive all-rounders, is supposed to stand for Gelande and Strasse, meaning terrain and street.
The Bavarian bike maker also offers the F and the K models. Any F BMW has a (more or less) vertical-cylinder architecture, while the K is usually used for touring bikes. Here's what BMW motorcycle letters usually stand for, but beware, in this case things are a bit confusing, because the Germans usually deploy the same letter for completely different kinds of bikes:
S, R, F - sport motorcycles
R, S, F, G - roadster motorcycles
M - sport motorcycles tweaked by performance division M
K, R - touring motorcycles
R - heritage motorcycles (both touring and standard)
R, F, G - adventure motorcycles
The mighty letters R and X (plus others)
Photo: Honda
The use of letters in a bike’s designation is very important for both bike makers and riders, as it makes it clear what each bike is all about. And there’s no letter more powerful in the motorcycle world than R.
Using an R suffix to name vehicles usually means things have to do with either racing or replica versions. When two of them are slapped together, RR most often translates to either Race Replica, or Race Ready.
Now, some people believe that adding one more R is just a fancy marketing trick, but others believe that’s needed to designate a bike that’s much closer to the actual works machine. In the case of Honda, for instance, RR bikes, whether we’re speaking about the CBR600 or the CBR1000, are indeed equipped with better components, usually pretty similar to those used on the race tracks.
When it comes to BMW, the use of the letter R is meant to stand for racing or rennsport, and that translates into incredibly potent two-wheelers.
Just like Elon Musk, bike makers seem to have an obsession with the letter X. While it is usually employed to represent something extra, it is often added to signify off-road capabilities, and at times simply because it looks good on a name. In the case of the ZX, GSX and so many more X-marked bikes, the moniker is there to single out their superiority over previous versions or the rival’s machines.
In some cases, some letters are used simply as an individual manufacturer code, without any hidden meaning. Some of these (almost) empty names have, however, grown to be social markers and now have a very solid meaning.
Photo: BMW Motorrad
Motorcycle manufacturers are using suffixes to indicate certain particularities for their bikes. For example, F can stand for both four-stroke and faired, while N stands for naked. Many streetfighter-type bikes have an N at the end of their names, so riders can instantly tell them apart. Kawasaki ER-6n and ER-6f are most likely some of the best examples.
An A at the end of the name signifies that the bike is equipped with ABS, whereas I is usually an indication for fuel-injected engines, sometimes marked by FI or EFI. V has been the mark of V-twin engines for quite a long time, for almost all manufacturers.
Suffixes like GT or GTL most likely come from Grand Turismo and GT Luxury. RT and ST for these German bikes refer to Reise Touring (Travel Touring) and Sport Touring, with the latter having the same meaning in the Honda ST100 and ST1300 names, or Triumph’s Sprint ST.
In Honda’s VTX1800 series, it stood for V-Twin eXtreme, telling the big-bore engine story. The name was accompanied by various suffixes, such as R for Retro, S for classic looks, F being a sporty cruiser, and C meaning performance. C is also used for Classic, but I guess you already know that.
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