In German, “Gurgel” translates to gargle (imperative singular) or throat (used colloquially, as e. g. in “grab them by the throat”).
I wonder what other brands translate to ridiculous, non-brand-y words in other languages.
I wonder what other brands translate to ridiculous, non-brand-y words in other languages.
Bunda, jewel store in Australia, literally means butt in Brazilian Portuguese (not slang).
Not really a brand I think, but the Tintin character also means male genitalia in Japanese. (it's also common in Brazil to toast with drinks saying "tintin / chin chin" because of the sound that glasses make, which gets a few jokes among the Brazilian-Japanese community.)
The Mitsubishi "Pajero" is called "Montero" in Spanish speaking countries. Again in Spanish, "Pajero" means "wanker".
If you mean “in Spanish-speaking countries”, alright. In Portuguese “nova” just means “new”, just as French's “nouveau” or Italian's “nuova”.
I'm skeptical of that. "go" isn't really idiomatic for "work" in English, and in Romance languages, you're going to use the local variant of "marcher" (literally "to walk") or "to function" to refer to technology working, so I suspect using the literal translation of "to go" is going to be a very strained idiomatic relationship at best.
Urban legend: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
Naah, that is a myth that has been debunked some 20 years ago:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
It is curious how it still surfaces from time to time.
The Pajero is instead a known "brand blunder":
> The name e-tron is very similar to the French word étron (meaning turd), causing some ridicule of the e-Tron in France [...] [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_e-tron_(2018)#Marketing
In Australia, they even turned it into a full-blown marque for a few years, so it was actually possible to buy a TRD Aurion or TRD Hilux. And, yes, fans of their competitors did indeed call them TuRDs.
The name of Microsoft's iPod competitor "Zune" is pronounced the same as the modern hebrew noun for "fuck"/"copulation", which is especially fitting given that you were able to "squirt" songs.
Together with the marketing slogan "Small on the outside, big on the inside", it would have been particularly hilarious.
Btw, Gurgel translates to gargle in Swedish, too.
Citroën had this problem a lot with their vans: they also have a commercial van called the Jumpy, which obviously isn't something you want to say about any vehicle, so it was changed to Dispatch for the UK. And they have a larger van called the Jumper, which was changed to Boxer, probably because "Jumper" also carries criminal connotations in English (bail jumper, stile jumper, etc.).