| You may or may not be aware that many foreign brands have their own brand names in Chinese. We have already had a look at technology brands (技术品牌 jìshù pǐnpái), car brands (汽车品牌 qìchē pǐnpái), sport brands (体育品牌 tǐyù pǐnpái) and other international brands (国际品牌 guójì pǐnpái). Here are a couple more big brand names in Chinese.  谷歌 (gǔ gē) — Google The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of the word “googol” (10100) which denotes the large quantities of information the search engine can provide to its users. In Chinese, the characters picked for Google are 谷歌 (gǔ gē.) The name literally means “Valley Song“, and is simply a phonetic match. 沃尔玛 (wò’ērmǎ) — Wal-Mart The American multinational retail corporation Walmart is called 沃尔玛 (wò’ērmǎ) in Chinese, which, of course, is a transliteration of the original name. 沃 (wò) “rich” + 尔 (ēr) “like that” + 玛 (mǎ) which is a character generally used to transliterate the sound “Ma” in Chinese. Put together it doesn’t make much sense and is another example of a brand trying to make the name sound as familiar as it’s English equivalent. 家乐福 (Jiālèfú) — Carrefour The French multinational corporation Carrefour (literally “a junction where one street or road crosses another”) is called 家乐福 (jiālèfú) in Chinese. This name means “home” 家 (jiā), “happy“乐 (lè) and “good fortune” 福 (fú). Certainly, a fine effort to integrate into the Chinese market with three positive characters all molded together. 高露洁 (gāo lù jié) — Colgate The umbrella brand, principally used for oral hygiene products, was named after the company founder, William Colgate. Its Chinese name 高露洁 (gāo lù jié) might not sound like a perfect transliteration, but its meaning is unrivalled: “revealing superior cleanliness” (高 gāo “high/superior” + 露 lù “to reveal” +洁 jié “clean/ cleanliness”). 宜家 (yí jiā) — IKEA The Chinese name of the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is called 宜家 (yí jiā). Similar to Colgate, the transliterations doesn’t sound perfect, but the meaning matches the concept: 宜 means “suitable, appropriate, fitting” and 家 means “family, household, home”. |
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