China Bans Weird and Long Company Names

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Last year, Beijing banned any more "bizarre" buildings. In recent years the country has seen buildings shaped like a teapot and another resembling a pair of trousers.

Now, China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce has continued the government's crusade for normalcy with restrictions on such names as 'scared of wife' or 'prehistoric powers'.

So, just how weird and wonderful are Chinese company names? Well, a few otherwise-unoccupied social media users in China have dug up some gems.

Skinny blue mushrooms

Some curiosities have crept into business names from internet memes.

"Shenyang Prehistoric Powers Hotel Management Limited Company" might sound weird but less so to Chinese sports fans who remember swimmer Fu Yuanhui.

She famously won a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics, afterwards declaring: "I have used all my prehistoric powers to swim!"

China's swimmer Fu Yuanhui attributed her win to her "prehistoric powers"

There are also lots of restaurants and cafes with the phrase "skinny blue mushroom".

The phrase originated from a meme which mocked a man from Guangxi province who uploaded a video of himself talking about his loneliness while his girlfriend was away.

"Unbearable, I want to cry," he moaned - but thanks to his accent, it ended up sounding more like "skinny blue mushroom".

Lost in translation

The rules of written Chinese are vastly different to those of written English, so many names seem far stranger in translation than in the original tongue.

People walk next to a store of Italian luxury brand Gucci on the fourth ring road in Beijing

English names can seem pretty strange in Chinese too, and there's a cottage industry among branding agencies to help western companies come up with names for the Chinese market.

Western company names often follow the name of their founder (think Boeing, Ford or Gucci), which might have no direct translation.

Or they might be a concocted portmanteau (think Verizon, which is the Latin word "veritas" meaning truth, with horizon bolted on to the end) or maybe even just tech nonsense (Etsy, Hulu).

"What we think is most important to come up with a name that captures the spirit of the brand," says Tait Lawton, from Nanjing Marketing Group, which provides naming services.

Mighty liquid guard

Western companies sometimes try to phonetically replicate the original, or come up with a Chinese name that's fairly neutral in meaning.

Others will come up with a new name that tries other ways of encapsulating the brand.

"BMW's current Chinese name is 宝马. It's great. The first character means 'treasure' and the second character means 'horse'. The sound is 'bao ma', starting with a B and M. Plus, it's short. It just has a great feel to it," says Mr Lawton.

He has a few other examples he likes too.

Pampers, for example, is 帮宝适 or "bang bao shi", which means "helps make baby comfortable".

Walch soap 威露士 or "wei lu shi" loosely translates as "mighty liquid guard", and who wouldn't want to wash with that?

Source: BBC

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