✍️ Essay
✓ Link checked
Free
Beginner
Nothing makes the cultural-check lesson stick like real names that backfired, and this piece walks through documented ones (Audi's e-tron, Hulu, Waterpik) where the meaning in another language was the whole problem. For an Indian founder naming for a market with dozens of languages, it is a useful nudge to say the shortlist out loud to people outside your own bubble. Read it as cautionary examples, not a rule that every name must be globally spotless.
11 Brand Names That Don't Translate Well in Foreign Languages
From 11 Points by Sam Greenspan ~8 min read
- Even large companies with global operations shipped names that mean something crude or off-putting in another language, so nobody is too big to skip the check.
- Say your shortlist aloud to speakers of the languages your customers actually use before you print anything.
- A name is not just how it reads in English: sound, spelling, and local slang all decide how it lands.
