Western brand names in Chinese

BMW is a “precious horse” in Chinese. Subway's name has nothing to do with trains.

You can recognise a shop from its logo for years without reading the name above the door. Then you learn a few characters and discover that the pizza place is talking about victory.

Some Western brands copy their original sound into Chinese. Some translate the meaning. The interesting ones manage a bit of both, or come up with a new idea entirely.

If you enjoy finding out what familiar things are called in Chinese, you might like Dengdeng, our reading app about life in China today. The stories are adapted to your level, with words you can tap for pinyin and meaning. You can tap the Chinese names in this article too.

The character readings here explain what you can see in a name. They are not all accounts of what a naming team intended. These are mostly mainland Chinese names; the Costco example at the end shows why that distinction matters.

Starbucks keeps half the English

星巴克 combines two approaches. 星 means “star.” 巴克 approximates “bucks.”

One half translated, one half sounded out. Once you notice the join, the whole name is easy to remember.

The sign adds 咖啡, “coffee,” after the brand. That gives you a useful little reading exercise: find where the name ends and the thing it sells begins.

Subway makes a much bigger promise

Subway's Chinese name is 赛百味.

赛 can mean “surpass,” 百 is “a hundred,” and 味 is “taste” or “flavour.” Put them together and you get something like “surpassing a hundred flavours.” It is an ambitious name for a sandwich counter.

The English sound is still loosely there. An underground railway is not.

Pizza Hut goes further. 必胜客 breaks into 必, “certainly”; 胜, “win”; and 客, “guest.” Roughly, “the guest who is sure to win.” Neither the pizza nor the hut survives.

Burger King is much more literal: 汉堡王. Burger. King. You could work it out without seeing the logo.

IKEA becomes a name about home

The letters IKEA are initials from its founder's name, his family farm, and his home village: Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd.

The Chinese name has a shorter explanation. 宜家: suitable for the home.

It is close enough to the original sound to recognise, and it tells you why you might go there. No knowledge of Swedish geography required.

On the building it says 宜家家居. The first two characters are IKEA; 家居 is home furnishings. The repeated 家 is not a typo.

Carrefour trades a junction for good fortune

Carrefour means “crossroads” in French. The company traces its name to the location of its first supermarket.

Its Chinese name, 家乐福, gives you three very different ideas: home or family, happiness, and good fortune.

There is a loose echo of the French sound. But read the characters and the supermarket sounds more like a wish for your household than a place where roads meet.

The cars sound expensive

宝马 is BMW: 宝, “treasure” or “precious,” plus 马, “horse.” A precious horse is a fairly good image for an expensive car.

Mercedes-Benz is 奔驰, a verb meaning to gallop or speed along. Two German car brands, two names you could use when talking about horses.

Volkswagen is 大众, “the masses” or “the general public.” That is closer to the idea of the “people's car.”

These are useful words outside a car dealership. Once you recognise 大众 in a paragraph, you still have to check whether the writer means Volkswagen or the public.

Coca-Cola and LEGO get pleasant characters too

可口可乐 is the famous one. You can hear Coca-Cola in it, while 可口 means “tasty” and 可乐 can mean “enjoyable.” The shorter 可乐 is also the ordinary word for cola.

LEGO is 乐高. The sound is recognisable; the characters suggest happiness and height. A convenient pair of associations for something you stack.

That is a reading of the Chinese characters, not the origin of the Danish name. LEGO itself explains that its name comes from leg godt, “play well.”

Sometimes the sound is enough

麦当劳 is McDonald's in Chinese syllables. 肯德基 approximates Kentucky, the first word in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Trying to read those characters as a sentence will not help you order lunch.

Nike is 耐克. You get the sound, plus characters associated with endurance and overcoming. That does not mean Nike literally translates as “endure and conquer”; it is still a brand name.

At the other end are names so literal that the translation almost disappears: 苹果 is Apple, and 微软 is Microsoft — “micro” and “soft.”

Costco has more than one Chinese name

You can learn the right name and still be surprised by another sign.

Costco uses 开市客 in mainland China, but 好市多 in Taiwan. That is a different choice of name, not just simplified versus traditional characters.

Both contain 市, “market.” Beyond that, memorising one does not give you the other.

The same caution applies to brand lists generally: check which market the writer is talking about before assuming one Chinese name works everywhere.

A few names to try without the logo

Cover the English column and see how many you can recover from the Chinese. Sounding them out helps with some; reading the meaning helps with others.

Next time you see a familiar logo, try reading the characters before you walk past. Start with the name, then the extra word beside it: coffee, restaurant, home furnishings. You already know what the shop sells; see how much of the sign you can explain.

Common questions

What is McDonald's in Chinese?

麦当劳. It approximates the sound of McDonald's rather than describing the food.

What is Starbucks in Chinese?

星巴克. 星 means “star”; 巴克 approximates “bucks.”

What does BMW mean in Chinese?

宝马: “precious horse.” That is the Chinese brand name, not the literal meaning of the German initials.

What is Subway in Chinese?

赛百味. Its characters suggest surpassing a hundred flavours, rather than an underground railway.

Do Western brands have the same Chinese name everywhere?

No. Costco is 开市客 in mainland China and 好市多 in Taiwan. Some brands use different names across Chinese-speaking markets.

For more about everyday life in China, browse today's Dengdeng stories. We choose real stories from China, from shopping habits to films and weekends, and adapt the Chinese so you can read at your level.