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After a hard day’s labor, your average upscale Beijinger likes nothing more than to shuck his dress shoes for a pair of Enduring and Persevering, rev up his Precious Horse and head to the pub for a tall, frosty glass of Happiness Power.
To Westerners, that’s Nike, BMW, Heineken and Coca-Cola, respectively. And those who wish to snicker should feel free: the companies behind these names are laughing too — all the way to the bank.
And so the art of picking a brand name that resonates with Chinese consumers is no longer an art. It has become a sort of science, with consultants, computer programs and linguistic analyses to ensure that what tickles a Mandarin ear does not grate on a Cantonese one.
The paradigm probably is the Chinese name for Coca-Cola, Kekoukele, which not only sounds like Coke’s English name, but conveys its essence of taste and fun in a way that the original name could not hope to match.
For some products, having a foreign-sounding name lends a cachet that a true Chinese name would lack. But on the other hand, a genuine Chinese name can say things about a product that a mere collection of homonyms never could. Take Citibank, Hua qi yinhang, which literally means “star-spangled banner bank”, or Marriott, Wan hao, which means “10,000 wealthy elites”. Or Pentium, Ben teng, which means “galloping.”
Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. The revised name, Bi ying, roughly means “responds without fail”.
And in China, the popular Mr Muscle line of cleaners has been renamed Mr Powerful (Weimeng Xiansheng). The product’s maker said in an email that it had forgotten why.
But it could be that when it is spoken, the name Mr Muscle has a second, less appealing meaning: Mr Chicken Meat. （The New York Times)
洋品牌取中国名字——压力山大
疲劳的一天结束后，北京上班族们都热衷于脱下皮鞋换上一双“耐久和坚持”，开着“贵重的马”去酒吧喝一杯冰镇的“幸福力量”。如果不爱喝酒，那来一瓶“美味快乐”也是很惬意的。
对西方人来说，上述品牌分别是“耐克”“宝马”“喜力”和“可口可乐”。这些译名不仅给消费者带来欢笑和谈资，更让持有这些品牌的公司财源广进。
为品牌选一个符合中国消费者口味的名字已不仅仅是一门艺术，它已经演变为一门科学——通过顾问提出建议、计算机程序运算和语言分析，来保证品牌名字无论是用普通话还是粤语来念都不会变味。
最典型的例子就是“可口可乐”，不仅听起来像它的英文名Coca-Cola，而且还包含了对产品口味描述和“带来快乐”含义的解读，这是它英文名字所不具备的。
品牌的中文名中突出“洋”元素会更易让人记住。但另一方面，一个地道的中国名字的含义仅靠同音异义词是很难传达的。像“花旗银行（Citibank）”，它的字面意思就是“星光灿烂的旗帜银行”，或者“万豪（Marriott）”，是“一万个富人”的意思，还有“奔腾（Pentium）”，寓意是“飞驰、奔跑”。
微软在中国市场推广Bing时最好慎之又慎，因为它在汉语中的意思是“疾病”“缺陷”还有“病毒”，这对一款计算机产品而言很不吉利。设计者随后修改了名字，现在它的中文名字是“必应”，通常代表“要求一定会得到满足”。
在中国广受欢迎的清洁产品“威猛先生”，它的命名也颇受一番周折。英文名Mr Powerful的意思是“肌肉先生”，本来要用这个翻译作为品牌的名字，但最终没被采纳，商家也未给出具体解释。
但不难推测“肌肉先生”被刷掉的原因：它和“鸡肉先生”发音完全一致，谁会去选择这样一款清洁产品呢？ （译言网）
To Westerners, that’s Nike, BMW, Heineken and Coca-Cola, respectively. And those who wish to snicker should feel free: the companies behind these names are laughing too — all the way to the bank.
And so the art of picking a brand name that resonates with Chinese consumers is no longer an art. It has become a sort of science, with consultants, computer programs and linguistic analyses to ensure that what tickles a Mandarin ear does not grate on a Cantonese one.
The paradigm probably is the Chinese name for Coca-Cola, Kekoukele, which not only sounds like Coke’s English name, but conveys its essence of taste and fun in a way that the original name could not hope to match.
For some products, having a foreign-sounding name lends a cachet that a true Chinese name would lack. But on the other hand, a genuine Chinese name can say things about a product that a mere collection of homonyms never could. Take Citibank, Hua qi yinhang, which literally means “star-spangled banner bank”, or Marriott, Wan hao, which means “10,000 wealthy elites”. Or Pentium, Ben teng, which means “galloping.”
Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. The revised name, Bi ying, roughly means “responds without fail”.
And in China, the popular Mr Muscle line of cleaners has been renamed Mr Powerful (Weimeng Xiansheng). The product’s maker said in an email that it had forgotten why.
But it could be that when it is spoken, the name Mr Muscle has a second, less appealing meaning: Mr Chicken Meat. （The New York Times)
洋品牌取中国名字——压力山大
疲劳的一天结束后，北京上班族们都热衷于脱下皮鞋换上一双“耐久和坚持”，开着“贵重的马”去酒吧喝一杯冰镇的“幸福力量”。如果不爱喝酒，那来一瓶“美味快乐”也是很惬意的。
对西方人来说，上述品牌分别是“耐克”“宝马”“喜力”和“可口可乐”。这些译名不仅给消费者带来欢笑和谈资，更让持有这些品牌的公司财源广进。
为品牌选一个符合中国消费者口味的名字已不仅仅是一门艺术，它已经演变为一门科学——通过顾问提出建议、计算机程序运算和语言分析，来保证品牌名字无论是用普通话还是粤语来念都不会变味。
最典型的例子就是“可口可乐”，不仅听起来像它的英文名Coca-Cola，而且还包含了对产品口味描述和“带来快乐”含义的解读，这是它英文名字所不具备的。
品牌的中文名中突出“洋”元素会更易让人记住。但另一方面，一个地道的中国名字的含义仅靠同音异义词是很难传达的。像“花旗银行（Citibank）”，它的字面意思就是“星光灿烂的旗帜银行”，或者“万豪（Marriott）”，是“一万个富人”的意思，还有“奔腾（Pentium）”，寓意是“飞驰、奔跑”。
微软在中国市场推广Bing时最好慎之又慎，因为它在汉语中的意思是“疾病”“缺陷”还有“病毒”，这对一款计算机产品而言很不吉利。设计者随后修改了名字，现在它的中文名字是“必应”，通常代表“要求一定会得到满足”。
在中国广受欢迎的清洁产品“威猛先生”，它的命名也颇受一番周折。英文名Mr Powerful的意思是“肌肉先生”，本来要用这个翻译作为品牌的名字，但最终没被采纳，商家也未给出具体解释。
但不难推测“肌肉先生”被刷掉的原因：它和“鸡肉先生”发音完全一致，谁会去选择这样一款清洁产品呢？ （译言网）