What are some brilliant Chinese names for foreign brands/products?

IKEA (宜家) all the way.

Now this is a hard name for translators to tackle because few people (even in the West) know what the name means.

IKEA is actually I-K-E-A, an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad (The founder of IKEA), Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up), and Agunnaryd (his hometown in Småland)

It would be ridiculous to translate all that into a brand name, so in a stroke of true genius the translators went with 宜家, and the name stuck immediately.

It was short and snappy, literally meaning “for the betterment of the home”, which is what IKEA is all about, and kept the pronunciation of IKEA AND still managed to squeeze in a references of an ancient Chinese poem that is at least 3000 years old!! (I know, WHAT~)

This is a classic case of a translation that was not only faithful to the original, but added to the original, and in the end, dare I say it, became even better than the original.

[1] The book that was referenced is Classic of Poetry

[2] The specific poem that was referenced is the 6th one, 桃夭 诗经

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