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Despite the apparent similarity in English, and that they both now use the kanakana セイコー in their official names, it appears that this Seiko (正興, "revive justic

Despite the apparent similarity in English, and that they both now use the kanakana セイコー in their official names, it appears that this Seiko (正興, "revive justice") has nothing to do with the far larger Seiko (精工, "qualify craft") group of watches, Epson printers etc fame. http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/company/profile.php https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko#History_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko#History_and_development

ulucs 7y ago
I wish western companies could have names that cool.
- afthonos 7y ago
  I think western companies avoid them because they seem like little-company names. I see a lot of small businesses named “Quality Plumbing”, “First Rate Contractors” etc. But if they do well, they’ll change their names to “Plumbz” and “Cment” (you’ll be shocked to learn I’m not a marketing expert), or no one will trust them outside their home town. Note that this wasn’t always so: Standard Oil, International Business Machines, General Electric, Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph were branded quite differently.
desdiv 7y ago
On a related note, the Mitsubishi Group is a huge conglomerate that makes everything from cars to fighter jets to nuclear plants. Mitsubishi pens also dominate the stationery market, and I just assumed that it was part of the group. But it turns out the pen maker is actually unrelated to the conglomerate[0]. To add to the confusion, both the pen maker and the conglomerate have identical English names, Japanese kanjis, and even share the same three-red-diamonds logo. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-ball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-ball
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  At some point, the company was renamed from Masaki to Mitsubishi, and the logo similarity can’t be an accident. They may not be officially related, but there’s almost certainly an interesting history between the two companies.
  - rtpg 7y ago
    It’s likely a similar story to Mitsui, where it’s actually just a huge family and people use their name to increase trust. EDIT: turns out both companies came to this logo independently. The pen company got to it first, and the Mitsubishi Group and the pen company decided to allow mutual usage due to non-competing business areas. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A4 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3... ^ here’s some more info for Japanese speakers. Basically both companies derived their logo from various family crests and it’s a pretty common shape so it ended up like this
- Terretta 7y ago
  Mitsubishi also manufacture money — on your behalf — as the recursively acronymed “MUFG Bank”[1,2,3,4]. // If you think it would be fascinating leading modern software engineering within this remarkable amalgamation, drop me a note. 1. MUFG Americas origin: https://mufgamericas.com/who-we-are/our-history https://mufgamericas.com/who-we-are/our-history 2. MUFG Bank origin: https://www.bk.mufg.jp/global/aboutus/origins/index.html https://www.bk.mufg.jp/global/aboutus/origins/index.html 3. UnionBank reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUFG_Union_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUFG_Union_Bank 4. MUFG (M-UFJ-FG) reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_UFJ_Financial_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_UFJ_Financial_Group
schuke 7y ago
However, their Chinese subsidiaries are also called "精工“, which is identical to the watch company. Their history page says it was renamed from 正興 to Seiko Advance in 1950. http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/en/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/en/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/cn/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/cn/company/profile.php

ulucs 7y ago

I wish western companies could have names that cool.

afthonos 7y ago
I think western companies avoid them because they seem like little-company names. I see a lot of small businesses named “Quality Plumbing”, “First Rate Contractors” etc. But if they do well, they’ll change their names to “Plumbz” and “Cment” (you’ll be shocked to learn I’m not a marketing expert), or no one will trust them outside their home town. Note that this wasn’t always so: Standard Oil, International Business Machines, General Electric, Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph were branded quite differently.

desdiv 7y ago

On a related note, the Mitsubishi Group is a huge conglomerate that makes everything from cars to fighter jets to nuclear plants. Mitsubishi pens also dominate the stationery market, and I just assumed that it was part of the group. But it turns out the pen maker is actually unrelated to the conglomerate[0]. To add to the confusion, both the pen maker and the conglomerate have identical English names, Japanese kanjis, and even share the same three-red-diamonds logo. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-ball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-ball

kd5bjo 7y ago
At some point, the company was renamed from Masaki to Mitsubishi, and the logo similarity can’t be an accident. They may not be officially related, but there’s almost certainly an interesting history between the two companies.
- rtpg 7y ago
  It’s likely a similar story to Mitsui, where it’s actually just a huge family and people use their name to increase trust. EDIT: turns out both companies came to this logo independently. The pen company got to it first, and the Mitsubishi Group and the pen company decided to allow mutual usage due to non-competing business areas. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A4 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3... ^ here’s some more info for Japanese speakers. Basically both companies derived their logo from various family crests and it’s a pretty common shape so it ended up like this
Terretta 7y ago
Mitsubishi also manufacture money — on your behalf — as the recursively acronymed “MUFG Bank”[1,2,3,4]. // If you think it would be fascinating leading modern software engineering within this remarkable amalgamation, drop me a note. 1. MUFG Americas origin: https://mufgamericas.com/who-we-are/our-history https://mufgamericas.com/who-we-are/our-history 2. MUFG Bank origin: https://www.bk.mufg.jp/global/aboutus/origins/index.html https://www.bk.mufg.jp/global/aboutus/origins/index.html 3. UnionBank reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUFG_Union_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUFG_Union_Bank 4. MUFG (M-UFJ-FG) reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_UFJ_Financial_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_UFJ_Financial_Group

schuke 7y ago

However, their Chinese subsidiaries are also called "精工“, which is identical to the watch company. Their history page says it was renamed from 正興 to Seiko Advance in 1950. http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/en/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/en/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/cn/company/profile.php http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/cn/company/profile.php