Six brand names that have highly unfortunate meanings in other languages

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Naming a product is a bit like naming a child: the smart thing to do is to first imagine all the possible ways the name could be mocked and misunderstood, just like they did in The Simpsons:

Marge: ‘What about Bart?’  Homer: ‘Hmm, let’s see. Bart, Cart, Dart, E-art… nope, can’t see any problem with that.’

And if you want to launch your product into the international market – well, you’d be wise to do your research into what that name means in the country you’re trying to sell it in. We bet these companies wish they’d done their homework.

1) Bing

“Bing” sounds like “disease” in Chinese. Luckily, this isn’t really a problem, because no one uses Bing anyway ( even in China ).

2) Siri

The name of Apple’s iPhone voice assistant sounds like a bunch of weird things in different languages: in Georgian, “Siri” sounds like “cock”, apparently. And no, not the rooster kind. And in Japanese, it’s pronounced the same as the word for “butt” (shiri). I’ve never met anyone else who has noticed the shiri thing, though, which suggests either that Japanese people are used to the language having tons of homophones, or that my friends’ sense of humour is a little more mature than mine.

▼ Either that, or they’re too busy looking at hamster bums to be thinking about homophones.

3) Hulu

You probably shouldn’t call any product a word that means “cease and desist”, right? Well, that’s what Hulu, the on-demand TV and movie service, means in Swahili.

▼ Think you don’t know any Swahili? Think again.

4) Lumia

Edit: Several commenters (thank you!) told us that “lumia” doesn’t have this meaning in modern Spanish. Nokia published an interesting follow-up statement called Naming the Nokia Lumia , which is worth a read for anyone interested in the branding process:

“experts in 84 dialects started work, checking for any negative associations in different languages and assessing how easy they are to pronounce…This process is never foolproof – as a couple of comments pointed out lumi, or lumia, is a very old Spanish word, long fallen into disuse…[Spanish consumers] thought firstly of ‘light’ and ‘style’ rather than the more obscure, negative meaning.”

This Nokia smartphone’s name means “prostitute” in Spanish. Which as a contributor over at Bro My God points out, “gives Nokia’s slogan ‘Connecting people’ a whole new meaning”.

▼ “Lumia. Yeah… It’s got legs.”

5) Puffs

Puffs tissues didn’t go down well in Germany, where “puff” is a slang word for a brothel. Probably wouldn’t have sold too well in the UK either.

▼ I wonder if they have Sugar Puffs in Germany…?

6) Sega

The first line of Sega’s Wikipedia page informs us that the company’s name is “pronounced /ˈseɪɡə/ (US/Canada/UK/New Zealand/Australia)”. Not in Spain, though, where the company insists the pronunciation is “see-ga”. Why? Well, because otherwise it sounds like the word for masturbation. Judging on some of Sega’s old ads, though, they might not necessarily mind the association…

And, of course, if your product is good enough (or your company has enough clout), people will buy it anyway. Remember how everyone mocked the name iPad when it was announced? No one thinks it sounds like a robotic sanitary napkin now. Well, almost no one.

Source: Bro My God , via Acid Cow
Featured image: Bro My God Top image: Amazo n
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