Where does the Bren rifle get its name?

[Matt85]

Sorry if this has been answered already but I havent been able to find the answer. Like the title says, where does the Bren get its name? Why is it not simply called the 805, 806, or 807?

Thank you

-Matt

[no.vale.la.pena]

Not sure, but for the Bren light machine gun (per wikipedia) the name was believed to be derived either from a combination of the Czech city of Brno and the English town of Enfield or derived only from the name Brno. Perhaps the contemporary firearm is a homage to this?

[rdcinhou]

From Manning, Robb, GunDigest Book of CZ Firearms, 2017, page 11....

"The first thing to get out of the way is the fact that, despite the name, the 805 Bren has nothing to do with the original World War II era BREN made in collaboration between Brno of Czechoslovakia and Enfield of England (hence Br En) and based on CZ's ZB LK Vz26 series of light machine guns. That's a lot of letters, so to break it down, ZB is Zbrojovka Brno which means "arms factory in Brno." LK is Lehky Kulomet, or light machine gun.  Vz is short for Vzor, which means model and is the Czech military designation, like the "M" is U.S. M9)."

Pages 10-25 in the above reference gives a lot of detail of how the 805 was developed, the competitions, acceptance and operation.

No further mention is made about exactly how the term Bren came to be associated with the series beginning with the 805.

The best guess is an "homage".

I highly recommend if you are into collecting CZs, pistols or rifles, this 286 page reference is a must-have.

[armoredman]

It was, indeed, in homage to the venerable and quite excellent BREN LMG. And, for the record, I would LOVE to own an original BREN gun.

[rdcinhou]

And don't forget the BREN TEN in 10mm, the name applied by Jeff Cooper (no relation) to the Combat Service Pistol 80 in 10mm derived/borrowing from the CZ 75.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bren_Ten

If I ever come across one, I'll probably have to sell another kidney to buy it!

Update:  there is one on Gunbroker.com right now and they're asking $10,900 for it.