I don't know if this is an Amazon anomaly or a Chinese anomaly, but it seems the brand names are not like they used to be. I remember Chinese brand names usually being like verbal junk food; Happy Sunrise, Pretty Tree, Gentle Flower, Endless Happiness, Graceful Bird, Strong Family, Etc. But the brands on Amazon now are more and more like just a random string of letters. Smarkl, Grobrty, Aayutug, Frbrtucal. It's like they don't realize the letters have any significance and are just shooting for a unique identifier. They're treating letters like octets in an IP address; as long as nobody else is using this specific sequence, it's as good as any other. This must be the equivalent of Americans getting random Japanese runes tattooed on themselves only to find out later their arm proudly proclaiming "salted pork" or even worse, nothing at all.

Anyone else notice this? I don't see any reason for it. Google translate is pretty good; I just read a translated Chinese article and it was more intelligible than any chinglish instruction manual I've ever read. All they have to do is decide on a brand name in Chinese, put it in Google, and use the sequence of letters that Google returns. Why all the wacky names?

 

Amazon has tightened requirements for sellers by creating the Amazon Brand Registry. To get listed you must have a registered trademark. The fastest and most certain way to get a trademark through the registration process is to make it unrelated to actual words.

The examination process includes evaluating the mark for relationship to common nouns and verbs, and for similarity to other marks registered in the same business area. A random string is very easy for the examiner to approve.

It certainly has lead to oddball and unpronounceable “names”.

 

Perhaps car-makers will start using this technique? They must have problems deciding on car model names which don't mean something offensive in some language/culture.

 

Amazon has tightened requirements for sellers by creating the Amazon Brand Registry. To get listed you must have a registered trademark. The fastest and most certain way to get a trademark through the registration process is to make it unrelated to actual words.

The examination process includes evaluating the mark for relationship to common nouns and verbs, and for similarity to other marks registered in the same business area. A random string is very easy for the examiner to approve.

It certainly has lead to oddball and unpronounceable “names”.

Well that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

 

I remember when most Chinese companies used names that looked just like some well known brand name.

 

What better example than the FLDSMDFR?

 

I remember when most Chinese companies used names that looked just like some well known brand name.

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