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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, I couldn't find an english source. Google translate link http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=...

It's interesting to note that "Uber" is translated as "About" (über)

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Thanks for everyone explaining why Uber translates to about - I'm a german native. Not knowing that makes the google translate a little hard to read, so I thought I'd add it for all that don't speak german.

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"Uber" is really quite a poor brand name for the German market. It either implies ignorance of the u-umlaut (the correct transliteration of über would be ueber, not uber), or worse, some very negative associations with Nazi ideologies (Übermensch and the first line of the Deutschlandlied).

What? Umber is just a preposition, it doesn't has nazi overtones. The fact that it's grammatically incorrect is probably a plus, because it's then less likely to be confused.

"über" does not always have nazi overtones but as with many other similiar words in the german language it is definitely tainted with nazi overtones, which are very obviously present depending on the context in which a word is used.

If you use "über" to describe something as better in some way, nazi overtones are very obviously present and if you name a company Uber, it's definitely implied that you're better than the alternatives.

>if you name a company Uber, it's definitely implied that you're better than the alternatives.

Wasn't this the point of the name?

Where I live people use über often and it means pretty much what it means in German and has no Nazi connotations. (Of course most of our German ancestors moved here long before WWI)

Of course it's the point but in precisely in this context it has a nazi overtones because this is how the nazis used it see "Übermensch" or "Deutschland über alles".

"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt..." is the beginning of the first verse of the national anthem that has now been banned, although mostly because it refers to borders that Germany now does not have anymore.

Über can be used as a prefix, but also as a preposition. Wikipedia has a good article about Über [1]

"über etwas sprechen" -> "to speak about something"

"über die Brücke" -> "across the bridge"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber

or, in Uber's case, "above" probably works best:

"weit über das Nötige hinaus" -> "far above what's necessary"

It translates to above? Like "X über alles" is "X above else".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/%C3%BCber%20alles

"Über" has no direct translation to English, it can only be translated in context. It can be translated to about, above, over, across, of, via, beyond and several other words.

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