All in the name game

Consulted English-to-Chinese translations are generally pushed through vigorous gauntlets, Labbrand Consulting Co, Ltd's vice-general manager Denise Sabet explains.

The mission usually begins with a creative brief about the brand's characteristics and positioning, she says. It then examines whether it's more desirable to have a phonetic or semantic translation - or one that's both.

Then, the branding team brainstorms hundreds or thousands of candidates. They need as many as they can get for the next step - legal screening.

"The Chinese trademark database is becoming increasingly crowded, especially in popular categories, such as fashion and cosmetics," Sabet says.

"It's more and more difficult to find a name that hasn't already been registered."

Survivors are put to the flames of dialectical cross-referencing. Labbrand scrutinizes contenders in Mandarin, Shanghainese, Sichuanese and Taiwan dialects, and Guangdong's and Hong Kong's respective Cantonese, to avoid negative connotations - or baldly offensive meanings.

Next comes a consumer-marketing test to explore preferences.

That's how Labbrand developed the Chinese names for such clients as Marvel. It arrived upon "Manwei", or "Comic Power".

"Together, the two characters are not only phonetically similar to the English name 'Marvel', but also indicate the nature of the brand and convey a sense of bravery and power," Labbrand's president Vladimir Djurovic says.

Stakes are perhaps higher for enterprises entering China, where names are like omens, pictographs contain broad yet deep implications and a few homophones create tens of thousands of words. So, translations are easier - and costlier - to mess up.

Djurovic points to Chcedo as a brand translation failure.

"This naming strategy was a dead end, and they changed recently to Chando," he says.

Others point out Chando's Chinese name zirantang is similar to the Chinese pronunciation of Japanese cosmetic brand zishengtang, although the characters have distinct meanings. The Japanese brand literally translates as "Resources Birth Hall" while Chando is "Natural Hall".

It's not uncommon for Chinese enterprises to purposely assume foreign-sounding names, especially in the luxury market.

These homegrown companies are emulating multinational luxury brands, which often use foreign-sounding monikers in China to infuse exoticism into their allure.

"The car brand Lexus renamed itself in China to appear more foreign. At first, it was lingzhi and then it changed to laike sasi," Djurovic says.

Lingzhi translates as "Rise Ambition". The new name retranslates as "Thunder Overcome Bodhisattva Slovak" - a wild sounding ride, indeed.

Chinese brands are conversely discovering the blessings of international branding with no meaning in other cultures or positive associations. That, along with trademark concerns, was part of what inspired Legend to reincarnate itself as Lenovo - Latin for "The New".

"The phenomena of (brand translation from) English, Spanish, German and so on to Chinese that's dominant now will soon shift to be from Chinese to English, Spanish, German, etc," Djurovic says.

Currently, a mix of brand translations, mistranslations and lack of translations into and from Chinese - all with respective composites of pronunciation and meaning - is the norm.

But the future may be lurching toward global branding convergence in which, even if we speak unintelligible native tongues, we will all understand Brandonese and Brandlish.

Liu Qing contributed to the story. Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn.