When companies create, they should give more thought to the names they give their products. I am not talking only about American companies, but I’m talking about companies all over the world. There are quite a few products which have names that turn people off in other countries, which cut down on the chance of that particular product ever being sold successfully in these places. Some product names translate to gibberish, some indicate you wouldn’t want to consume anything which might have ingredients which the name indicates and other products have names which are just plain insulting in some places. Let me give you a mild example. One day when my family and I went out to a Chinese restaurant and were reading the menu we found out there was a pu pu platter on that menu. I have to admit we ordered this and it turned out to be nothing more than an assortment of favorite Chinese hors d’oeuvres. Believe me it was not poo.

Make believe you are in the country of Ghana. You’re very thirsty and you like soft drinks, but Coke or Pepsi is not their favorite drink. You decide to order the cola they like best and when it comes the label says Pee Cola. You think to yourself how could a company think they could sell something with a name like this? Then you realize where you are and the main language is not English so you decide to find out what the word pee means in their language and are surprised to find it means “very good cola.”

I guess when Hulu had its name selected corporate headquarters must not have thought the service was not going to be too popular in Africa. The word hulu in Swahili mean cease and desist. They should’ve picked a word that meant watch.

Things are changing in Iran and there will be a lot of Americans working for companies who will be sent there to make business deals. As they do their work I am sure their clothes will get dirty and need to be washed and what better way to do it than with one of the most popular brands of laundry detergent called Barf. While this may sound disgusting to us and remind us of those little bags they give you on airplanes when you get sick, in Iran the word barf means snow.

One of the more funny ones was the translation of that famous saying by Frank Purdue which is, “it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken.” Billboards were put up all over Mexico with this translated into Spanish which read, “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.” Nope I don’t think this is what Mr. Purdue meant and quite frankly it sounds offensive.

When KFC first opened a restaurant in Beijing China, they wanted their famous slogan, “Finger-Lickin good” to appear on the restaurant sign. The problem was when the Chinese translated it, it came out “We’ll eat your fingers off!” I wonder how many Chinese families were telling their children if you’re not good we are going to take you to KFC? Pepsi also had a problem with Chinese translations, because when their famous slogan, “we bring you back to life” was put on their products the Chinese translation was, “we bring your ancestors back from the grave.”

I’d like to point out at this juncture this is one of the reasons I’m always hesitant to quote things I read which were translated. You really never know if this is exactly what the person meant.

Mitsubishi decided they were going to launch the Rover vehicle called Pajero 4WD in Spain. Sound like a good idea and driving a four wheeled vehicle in Spain might have its perks, but not when you name the vehicle the jerk. Hey Joe what kind of vehicle did you just buy? Oh I bought a Jerk. Are you calling me a jerk? No I am saying I bought a Mitsubishi “Jerk”. Watch it buddy!

People should really be more careful when translating things. Let me give you an example. We all know that recently the Pope visited the United States. He also makes visits to many other places so a T-shirt company, which found out he was going to go to Spain, decided to take advantage of this and translate a T-shirt which stated, “I saw the pope” into Spanish and sell T-shirts in that country. But I ask you would you buy a T-shirt that read, “I saw the potato?” Maybe they should sell the T-shirts in Idaho.

Puffs is the brand name of a tissue. It sells pretty well at least in the United States, but unfortunately in Germany it translates as the word brothel.

There is a Norwegian beer that I don’t believe will ever be popular in this country. While to many  regions it is just another draft beer I think to us it would be something more considering its name, Aass Fatol.

Braniff Airlines decided to upgrade their flying experience in 1977. They recovered their seats in first class with leather and developed a slogan which said, “Fly in leather.” People in Spain were horrified because it got translated as, “fly naked.” I wonder what would happen if somebody would’ve tried to take them up on this?

Lastly let me tell you about an Italian mineral water company. Their water was selling very well in Italy, so they figured why not start selling it in Spain? The name of the company was Traficante. Little did they know that this word in Spanish means drug dealer.

I think you can see how important it is to check the languages of every major country in the world to make sure not only does the name of your product fit in, but also to check whatever you write about it.