Just to add to the list, a few other good examples, all meeting the three criterion in the article: Carrefour is translated as 家乐福(jia le fu), which means fami

Just to add to the list, a few other good examples, all meeting the three criterion in the article: Carrefour is translated as 家乐福(jia le fu), which means family, happiness and fortune. The supermarket chain's success was largely due to the name, 'cause many Chinese people actually think it is a Chinese company. Pizza Hut as 必胜客(bi sheng ke), which means the winning one; although the name has not link to pizza or food, it helped to shape Pizza Hut as a premium brand. BMW's brand identity(宝马, bao ma) is known as a prestigious horse; Mercedes-Benz's Chinese name 奔驰(ben chi) means gallop, running with speed, etc. So car manufacturers do have good tasted for their brand names. Groupon' s newly picked name is 高朋(gao peng), which means classy friends. Also a clever choice. ---- One key trend in the name-picking game in the recent years is that more and more companies are trying to make their brands actually MEAN something. Earlier entrants like McDonald's, KFC, Disney, Nike, Adidas, they simply chose a few characters whose combination replicates the sound but is nevertheless meaningless. Why? Because more than a decade ago, having such a name automatically indicates you are a foreign brand, and this is a good thing. People were naturally drawn to such names, they believed foreign products stand for quality and premium experience. Also, early entrants are usually the first in its category to attack the Chinese market, giving them a monopoly position (sort of). For instance, KFC is known as 肯德基, whose brand image is not KFC itself but American Fast Food as a concept. Yet companies who entered the market after 2000, all tried to attach some implied meaning to a name, or in some other words they all seek localization. The reasons things have changed are: firstly, more and more foreign brands entered the market, the monopoly benefits are no longer; in addition, a lot, I mean really a lot, of local Chinese brands try to mimic the strategy by crowning themselves a foreign title, which dilutes the whole foreign branding concept; finally, a growing number of English speaking population (especially the ones with considerable pocket size) demands difference, they are aware of Starbucks, but mostly remembers the brand as 星巴克, a clever enough translation.