Naming a car is a science.

When joint venture brand models enter the Chinese market, they must first learn to translate well. A trustworthy and elegant Chinese translation will accompany this car's dominance in the Chinese market for decades. Products such as "Accord", "Teana" and "Junwei" are all successful cases. These names not only translate the connotations of foreign names, but are also full of auspicious meanings that Chinese people love to hear.

There are many ways of translation, some are free translations, and some are transliterations. For example, among Toyota's many classic models, are they better "Domineering" or "Prado", "Land Cruiser" or "Land Cool"? Which one is better, "Luzer", "Camry" or "Camry"? It's really a matter of opinion.

There are also car companies that adhere to the principle of simplicity and use numbers and letters as the basis for naming, such as BMW's "number system" in BBA, Mercedes-Benz's "letter grade" and Audi's "alphanumeric" . The advantage of naming with numbers and letters is that the level of the car series is clear at a glance.

Private brands have not gone through this translation process, and more need to improve their Chinese skills. Without some historical heritage and humanistic color, it is difficult to become the spokesperson of a national automobile brand. Judging from the fact that BYD has registered trademarks for more than 5,000 years, we know that they are determined to write their products into the history of Chinese industrial culture.

Recently, several car companies have been so imaginative when naming new cars that it is jaw-dropping.

Haval and WEY, there are cats, dogs and tanks

Great Wall has been making frequent moves recently: first in June, it officially announced that a new category of SUV would be named "Haval Big Dog", and later The pure electric car Euler White Cat was launched, and recently it was announced that WEY? P01 was officially named "Tank 300". The release and naming of this series of new cars are very "showy".

The name "Haval Big Dog" was collected in the "'Haval Name Collection, Worth a Word's Fortune' Haval's new category of SUV global naming campaign". Previously, the H and F product series of Haval SUV were systematically named with English letters and numbers. The H series is a balanced, cost-effective mainstream urban SUV; the F series is a sporty, trendy, mainstream individual SUV. The Haval Big Dog completely breaks away from the previous regular naming method, which means that Haval will use this to open up a new market.

Not long after the appearance of the big dog, Great Wall released the Euler White Cat, instantly achieving "both cat and dog". Judging from the meaning of the model itself, the new Euler car is named after "Eula White Cat", which is inseparable from the popular "cat-playing" culture among contemporary young people.

If Haval and Euler are targeting young hipsters and take the cute pet route, WEY’s “Tank” takes the hard-core route. Initially, "Tank" was used to name WEY's global intelligent professional off-road platform, and the first model "WEY P01" launched based on the "Tank" platform has been officially named "Tank 300".

With cats, dogs, and tanks, the Great Wall seems to be stepping out of its comfort zone, entering an unknown jungle, and embarking on an adventure.

K5 is renamed "Kaiku", will the sales be cool?

The brand-new third-generation Kia K5 will be launched in September this year. It has been nearly 10 years since the second-generation K5 landed in the Chinese market in 2011. This upgrade of K5, in addition to a complete facelift, also has a new Chinese name "Kaiku".

The new K5 is named "Kaiku". According to the official statement, "Cool" means youthful appearance and super strength; "Kaiku" represents coolness and personality, and is committed to creating the post-90s generation Z. Dream Car. The naming of "Kaiku" continues the idea of ??naming K4 as "Kaishen". In 2017, K4 was renamed "Kaishen" and re-launched in order to cover up the fact that K4 products were aging. Even with the name change, "Kaishen" still cannot save the K4's sales decline.

I’m going to dig into K4’s troubled past when it changed its name. I’m not saying that K5 will repeat the same mistakes when it becomes “Kaiku”. On the contrary, after K5 was renamed "Kaiku", it was a brand new upgrade. The improvement in product strength was not the same as that of "Kaishen" back then.

Some people say that "Kaiku" shoulders the national hope of Korean cars revitalizing the Chinese market. Some people say that "Kaiku" is just a word count among the "Three Treasures of Diaosi" (Suoba K5 Malibu). of. In any case, "Kaiku" is facing an extremely competitive mid-size car market, and it may be very difficult to occupy a place.

Cadillac pays tribute to musicians, and its pure electric models all have "iq"

A few days ago, Cadillac officially released a preview video of its first pure electric model, Lyriq. The new car will be launched in 8 Officially unveiled on September 6th. According to current information, the new car is positioned as a mid-size SUV and is the first mass-produced model under GM's new pure electric architecture. It will also be equipped with an Ultium battery pack and the cruising range may exceed 644km.

Except for the Escalade, all Cadillac models currently sold in China are named in the form of "alphabet numbers". In fact, Cadillac's tradition is to name models after words, such as the classic Eldorado, Seville, etc. This time Cadillac named its pure electric vehicle "Lyriq", which can be said to be a return to tradition and a tribute to classics.

As for the meaning of “Lyriq”, Cadillac’s head of global brand strategy Phil?l Dauchy explained in an interview with the media: “Surveys show that Cadillac is the most popular car brand in history. Countless songs mention Cadillac in their lyrics. Therefore, Cadillac named its new all-electric SUV Lyriq, which is pronounced the same as 'Lyric' in English. In addition, Cadillac pays tribute to the entire music scene. There are also plans to have the names of all future new models end with 'iq' (including the all-electric flagship sedan Celestiq, which will be launched after the Lyriq and will be launched at the New York Auto Show)."

Cadillac's All electric cars will have "iq". Do these models, which represent the new generation, really have "IQ"? Let’s wait and see.

Author's words

Naming a car is a process of conveying the car's positioning and concept to future users in a named way. A trustworthy and elegant name is often more likely to become a classic even though it is stable. At the same time, there are always car companies that take the wrong approach. Some of their ideas are refreshing, while others are not flattering.

As the saying goes by Cantonese people: "You are not afraid of bad life, but you are afraid of changing your name."

(This article is only the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of Heche Club)

This article is from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.