User:Benjamin Mako Hill/List of unintentionally offensive product names
List of offensive names due to lack of research or foresight:
- Reebok Incubus: a running shoe for women that shared its name with an Incubus (a demon that sexually assaults women while they sleep);
- Lolita Bed: a bed marketed for six-year-old girls whose name seemed to reference ephebophilia;
- Trekstor i.Beat Blaxx: a German-made MP3 player named for its sleek black finish, not violent assault on racial minorities
- Pschitt: A lemonade sold in France by Perrier
List of names that were originally unoffensive but whose name developed offensive meanings over the product's life:
List of product names that are were offensive in a language spoken in an area they were marketed:
- Barf detergent: US slang for "vomit".
- Osram: a company marketing name that is offensive in Polish, means literally: to put shit on something
- Toyota MR2 roadster: pronunciation of the name in French as 'emm-err-deux' sounds like the French word for fecal matter: Merde.
- UK chain of restaurants called 'Zizzi', french child slang for 'penis'.
- Dreck Soap: in Yiddish dreck means feces, in German, it means rubbish/crap.
- section/link to article on Nova and other nonoffensive but bad marketing ideas for name?
- Cock soup
- The Swedish International Development Agency, or SIDA for short, had some minor problems in latin america and francophone Africa where SIDA (Syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise) means AIDS.
- Mazda Laputa, "la puta" in Spanish means "the whore".
- Nissan Moco, "moco" in Spanish means "snot" or "booger".
List of product names that are were offensive in a language spoken in an area they were intended to be marketed, and whose name was changed beforehand:
- Honda Fit (pronounced Fitta in japanese) was supposed to be marketed in Europe, where in a nordic country 'fitta' would crudely mean 'vagina'. It was thus renamed to Honda Jazz in Europe, and Fit elsewhere.
- Pajero: a Mitsubishi car named Montero in Spanish speaking countries because... well, you'd better read linked article.
- Rolls Royce Silver Mist: Never actually named that way, as Mist means dung, in German
- Despite Mist meaning dung in German, some products with that name are sold there, like Irish Mist.
- Volkswagen Passat - In Russian slang, "passat" means to go the WC.
- Nope, "Passat" is a Russian word with the same meaning as in English, with no negative connotations whatsoever, clearly distinguished from the slang word "possat' ", with a soft sign after "t", pronounced "passat' " and meaning "to have peed". Some non-native English speakers, most notably from the southern ex-USSR republics would pronounce such words with a hard "t", and there is a dated joke based on that fact, but that's all.
- Kukident is German toothpaste for dentures but means "dick in mouth" in Swedish[citation needed]
- Chana: chinese car marketed in Brazil is slang for vagina