[[caption-width-right:300:Best name for a soft drink, ever.]]
One often hilarious side effect of globalization is that product names and commercial {{Slogans}} do not always translate well into other languages and cultures. The problem is frequently compounded by the translator's ignorance of idioms or regional usages that a native speaker would understand and/or avoid. The result is a slogan that insults, offends, or unintentionally amuses the reader.

Note that many of the examples of this trope which can be found on the Web -- like [[http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp the infamous "Chevy Nova"/"no va" story]] and the TropeNamer itself -- are in fact UrbanLegends with no basis in truth. But there are a few actual cases out there.

A subtrope of BlindIdiotTranslation and UnfortunateNames. Compare with GratuitousEnglish, MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels, InMyLanguageThatSoundsLike, CleanDubName. The entire point of the HomogenousMultinationalAdCampaign is to avoid this, and a MarketBasedTitle is another way to. HaveAGayOldTime is a subtrope (or at least a related trope).



[[folder:Beverages (non-alcoholic)]]
* This trope is [[TropeNamer named for]] one of the classic examples, an attempt to transliterate "Coca-Cola" into Chinese; the right sounds were used, but the wrong ''characters'' were written, with the result that instead of advertising soft drinks, the mastication of [[ExpospeakGag paraffin larval amphibians was encouraged]]. ([[http://snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp Note that this was never the official name]]; rather, before there was an official Mandarin version, shopkeepers who sold Coke would use whichever transliteration they wanted). Creator/DaveBarry declared "Bite the Wax Tadpole" to be "the best name I ever heard for a soft drink." (The closest "bite the wax tadpole" could ever get to sounding like Coca-Cola would be 齰蝌蚪蜡 - cuòkēdǒulà. Close, but no cigar.)
** Coca-Cola has had other problems with Chinese. A simple dialect variation on the phrase that provides the trope name resulted in "Bite the wax-fattened mare". The eventual ''official'' transliteration--可口可乐, pronounced Kěkōu Kělè--ends up being a fairly close approximation (they couldn't actually transliterate it exactly and have a good name, as the only character read as "La" that has a meaning that sounds like anything you'd actually want to put in your mouth means "hot," as in [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce hot sauce]] [[note]]A common homophone means "Wax", hence that word showing up so much in these stories[[/note]]), with the [[{{Woolseyism}} added bonus]] of actually meaning "tasty and fun."
*** It ''literally'' means "Can mouth, can happy" ("can" here is in the "is able to" sense), but then the Chinese words for "tasty" and "enjoyable, amusing" translate to "can mouth" and "can happy" respectively.
* Coca-Cola labels written in Arabic suffer a similar problem. In keeping with the traditional cursive style of lettering, instead of saying Coca-Cola, which would actually be kuka kula in Arabic, the first vowel in each words (the "wow", which makes the "u" sound) is connected to the next consonant, which makes the words most closely resemble "kfka kfla" or "kqka kqla."
* Pepsi has a similar myth, the slogan "Come alive! You're in the Pepsi Generation" was [[http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/ancestor.asp allegedly]] mistranslated in China as "Pepsi brings your ancestors BackFromTheDead." This gets a ShoutOut in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', where the soft drink Tupari Sport is advertised with the slogan "Tupari: Brings your ancestors back from the grave!"
** Not to mention the spin-off drink Pet Sweat.


[[folder:Beverages (alcoholic)]]
** You don't even need to go to Swedish to make a joke of it: Cockburn's Dry Tang: Do ''you'' [[SmokingHotSex smoke after sex]]?
** Cockburn's even had to make an advert just to clear up the confusion: it is pronounced '''co''' - burns. This doesn't change the fact that it looks like it's saying something dirty. We could go on about how the name is derived from an Old English personal name meaning "warrior with black sword," which doesn't help with the dick jokes, but you probably get the idea.
** Another version of this story had Clairol attempting to market a product called the 'Mist Stick'.
*** Even more hilarious, because it is similar to 'Miststück' ('bitch', literally 'piece of manure')!
** Surely, at least some of these companies didn't bother with research -- as any good etymological dictionary shows, the English word "mist" is a word borrowed from Old German and originally had connotations of the steam rising from a freshly-deposited pile of dung. As time went on, the romantic light-fog association remained and the unromantic origin quietly disappeared.
* Intentionally invoked with the case of the Austrian town of Fucking (officially pronounced "Fooking," [[RuleOfFunny but you know]]). This inspired someone in Germany to market a beer called "Fucking Hell." Hell means "pale" in German and refers to a type of beer. The apparently humorless residents of the town were not amused and tried to sue them, but lost. EU authorities also initially refused to grant the trademark on the grounds that it contained an expletive, but the defendants successfully argued [[BlatantLies that "Fucking" referred exclusively to the town,]] and if anyone confused it for the English expletive then that was their own problem. The Austrians are apparently not alone in this, as a little over 100 miles away is a German town called "Wank."
* Then there was the Japanese whiskey brand that chose to adopt another name when they noticed that ''Black Nikka'' didn't quite meet expectations of political correctness in the USA.

* The Ford Cortina was originally going to be marketed as the Ford Caprino, until ''caprino'' turned out to be Spanish for 'goat-like' or 'goaty'.
** Well it's not a common word, unlike "cortina", that means "curtain" (the car was named after the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo, where the 1956 Winter Olympics were held). Kind of ridiculous.
* There is a bus company in Germany called Fücker. Many Germans speak enough English to find this amusing. One has to wonder if any of its routes go to the Austrian village of [[http://www.fucking.at/fucking/eOrt1.htm Fucking]] (linked site is probably SFW if not kid-friendly).
** Also, instead of using an umlaut as part of the "ü", the company Fücker uses something resembling a [[http://sysadm.in/blog/images/fucker-bus.jpg monobrow]], resulting in the letter "ü" actually being recognized as a "u".
** The unfortunately named 'Lamers' bus line used to show up in video game forums all the time. [[http://www.golamers.com/ Go Lamers!]]
** There's also a bus company called "DAU" in Germany. Not all that funny, unless you know that "DAU" is a common play on the nuclear facility term "GAU" (Größter Anzunehmender Unfall) meaning the "Biggest Imaginable Accident/Disaster". (Chernobyl was considered a Super-GAU). "DAU" means "Dümmster Anzunehmender User". Literally "Stupidest Imaginable User", and is used by computer- and electronic-savvy people as well as by the poor guys working in help call centers at the companies who produce that stuff, to refer to those really hopeless cases you have heard of who want help and make you want to headdesk - you know, the kind that [[ComputerEqualsMonitor buys a monitor and thinks that's a computer]], etc. Even more funny since the DAU buses have actually been spotted in the parking lot in front of computer and electronics fairs and conventions - meaning someone actually must have travelled there in them.
* The Buick Lacrosse was renamed Buick Allure in Canada, because in Quebecois slang, not only is ''crosse'' a word meaning "to fraud, swindle, rip off" (which, for obvious reasons, is a bad name for a car, much like the "no va" urban legend), but can also refer to [[ADateWithRosiePalms crossing your hands around "la verge"]]. For the 2nd generation, the name was restored, and GM also began to offer replacement nameplates for those who are silly enough to want them.
** The whole thing is patently absurd, considering lacrosse is Canada's national sport.
* There is a public transport company in Locarno in Switzerland called FART (''Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi'', Italian for "Ticino Regional Railways and Buses"), much to the amusement of English-speaking tourists visiting the city. The Lonely Planet guide to Switzerland has a CrowningMomentOfFunny with the line "that's the company name, not [[{{Fartillery}} the means of propulsion]]". Many locals find this just as amusing, as most Swiss speak English.
* The wheelchair brand Quickie was actually ''meant'' to be a double entendre: one of its first slogans was "You need a Quickie."
* The Mitsubishi Pajero SUV is marketed as the Montero or Shogun in some regions because "Pajero" is slang in some dialects of Spanish for "Wanker". (One of these is Mexican Spanish, hence the "Montero" labeling in the US. Another of those is European Spanish, which is why the sight of imported Pajeros is always accompanied by a chuckle)
** The [[http://www.nissan.co.jp/MOCO/ Nissan Moco]] (snot) and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Laputa Mazda Laputa]] (the whore) had unfortunate names too.
*** The Mazda Laputa was named after after the fictional island of Laputa in Literature/GulliversTravels. Supposedly, Jonathan Swift was actually aware of the name's meaning.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker Anthony Fokker's aircraft]] is a beautiful and historically significant piece of Dutch aerospace engineering. Among its [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker#Famous_Fokker_aircraft_and_pilots many famous exploits]], it was flown by the ace of aces, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen Baron Von Richthofen]]. But more importantly, it is ''a lot'' of fun to say over the radio.
-->-'''Custodian at the Aviodome aviation museum, Schiphol airport Amsterdam.'''
** "Fokker" is an actual word not unrelated to the English word you're thinking of. It means "breeder" (of animals).
* The Toyota [=MR2=] performance car was renamed to simply the Toyota MR in France. The reason is that [=MR2=] is pronounced "em-air-deux" in French, or "est merdeux". Although a reasonably acceptable word in French, nobody would want a car called "Toyota is Shitty".
* The Alfa Romeo 164 was sold in Asia as the 168 due to FourIsDeath connotations. More specifically, 164 in Chinese means "On the road to death", while 168 is "On the road to prosperity".
* An Indian carmaker's name, Tata, means "Dad" in Polish, and also happens to mean "Goodbye" in some South-East Asian pidgin slangs.
* A particularly unfortunate example is the German freight shipping company [=PAKi=] Logistics. They were very upset when they were banned from registering their name as a Europe-wide trademark due to its British English meaning. (Which for non-English-speakers is a very, very, offensive racial insult for a South Asian person, on the same level as "the n-word" in the USA.)
* The Soviet brand of cars, Zhiguli (named after Zhiguli Mountains, a hills/short mountains formation in Southern Russia) was renamed "Lada" when they realized it sounds like "gigolo".

[[folder:Electronics and related]]
** Shortly after people in the UK ran out of piss jokes on the day the name was first announced, somebody else realized that Nintendo's UK distributor - the company charged with the task of [[IncrediblyLamePun steady streams of Wii into the channel]] - was a German-based company called Koch Media. HilarityEnsued.
** Americans, meanwhile, while they know of the aforementioned usage, are more likely to think in terms of "playing with their Wii", as in ADateWithRosiePalms. Oddly enough, the fact that the connotation is even more dirty may have worked out better overall, as it seems to have caused the joke to have become played out fairly quickly.
** Because Wii sounds like "wie" (how) in German, it lead to some WhosOnFirst-esque jokes.
* [=TrekStor=] was forced to rename the latest [=MP3=] player in its i.Beat line -- namely, the i.Beat Blaxx -- due to the unintended racial connotations of the name.
** Of course, "i.Beat" by itself could be used in a couple gags a la "Wii". It's obviously nowhere near as bad, though.
* The word ''lund'' is Urdu and Punjabi slang for a man's genitalia, which is fair enough. Some British-Asian dialects spell and pronounce it ''lan'', which causes predictable hilarity when GCSE Information Technology classes are taught about local area networking.
*** Indeed, in French, "bite" (pronounced "bit") refers to a private part of the masculine anatomy. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity ensues]] regularly in basic binary algebra classes...
** Also note late American race car driver [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Lund Tiny Lund]].
* The name of the video game company Creator/{{Sega}} also happens to be a crude Italian slang term meaning "to masturbate." This is why, when Arsenal Football Club was sponsored by Sega, its shirts sported the logo of the company's [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast then-current flagship product]] rather than the word Sega itself, Arsenal often finding itself playing in Italy or against Italian opposition. Although given Sega's love for GettingCrapPastTheRadar {{double entendre}}s and raunchy jokes, you'd think they would have embraced this coincidence with open arms.
** The Italian soccer team U.C. Sampdoria did the same for the same reason, which is also why all Italian commercials always pronounced "Sega" as "seega".
** The Portuguese word "Cega" (pronounced exactly the same as "Sega") means "blind" (female form). The rest really writes itself.
** I dunno, usually when I procrastinate there's gaming involved...
* When Apple announced that its tablet was to be called the "iPad", it elicited many groans from all sides - half who were fans of ''Series/{{MADtv}}'', who did a parody commercial about a feminine hygiene product that combined an iPod with a maxi pad [[HilariousInHindsight a full four years before a product with the name iPad would become a reality]]. And the other half who realized that if you thought about it, it was "Mac's iPad".
** It gets worse when thick accents are involved. In Newfoundland, Canada, the native Newfoundland accent pronounces both "iPod" and "iPad" almost interchangeably.
* An example that looks funny in English: the German electronics company Siemens. Though the German pronunciation, ZEE-mens, is retained in English-speaking countries, dirty-minded anglophones unfamiliar with German phonetics don't have to stretch their imaginations too far.
* The Commodore VIC-20 was originally going to be called the Vixen, until Commodore realized it would be unsellable in Germany, since "vixen" sounds like ''wichsen'' ("[[ADateWithRosiePalms to wank]]"). They shortened it to VIC and came up with a backronym ('''V'''ideo '''I'''nterface '''C'''hip), but that too wouldn't fly in Germany, because "vic" sounds like ''Fick'' ("fuck"). They ended up calling it the VC-20 in Germany, VC standing for ''Volkscomputer'', and VIC-20 everywhere else.
** Their first line of computers was called the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) range, until they discovered that "pét" is French for "fart". Their last computer range was called Amiga -- Spanish for "female friend".
** Similar to the above, there was a late-8-bit-era game called ''Vixen'' which, for its German release, was renamed to -- ''She Fox''. Cue much hilarity in British computer magazines (one remarked "I bet she does").
* The location bookmarking app Rego got publicity in Brazil when it was discovered that [[http://www.dafacto.com/2013/03/22/rego-goes-viral-in-brazil/ their name means "drain" or "gutter" in Portuguese]].
** That meaning is obscure at best. In Brazilian Portuguese, rego is slang for butt crack. [[https://rego.to/ You try reading the app's feature list with that mind.]]
* {{Google}} is often made fun of in France where the name sounds a lot like "gogol" (French for "retarded").
* Likewise, {{Facebook}} has become the ButtMonkey of many French jokes due to its close resemblance to the phrase "fesses de bouc" (goat's butt).

* Apparently, the new name chosen by the SciFiChannel, "Syfy", is Polish slang for "pimples" or "acne".
** As such, the Polish version of the channel maintained the name "Sci-Fi Universal", even as the Syfy name was being brought worldwide.
* Both ''Happy Days'' and ''Joanie Loves Chachi'' had the character "Chachi," which sounds a lot like the Korean word for penis ("chaji").
* A bit of an example of SeparatedByACommonLanguage, in Britain "bender" is a slang term for homosexual. While the TV show ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' changed its title to "The Legend of Aang", the [[Film/TheLastAirbender movie adaptation]] was not so lucky, and since 'bender' is used constantly in both versions, it can be quite amusing for British audiences.

* In Greece, CharltonHeston's name is spelled "Charlton Easton" due to his regular name sounding like Greek for "shit him" or "fuck him."
* In Brazil, [[Film/StarWars Count Dooku]] was changed to Count Dookan, as Dooku sounds like "from the ass" in Portuguese. Captain Panaka did not have the same luck, and he kept the name that is a slang for idiot or sucker.

* When Ben and Jerry's first started selling their ice cream in Japan, they couldn't figure out why their "Chunky Monkey" flavor wasn't selling very well. Turns out that the name was mistranslated as [[{{Squick}} "Chunks of Monkey"]].
* Since "chicken" is a Chinese slang term for a prostitute the KFC slogan "We do chicken right" when translated literally into Chinese is "It's right that we become prostitutes".
** Another KFC slogan, "Finger-Lickin' Good" was translated as "Eat Your Fingers Off."
* And, of course, how can we not mention the problem of advertising a [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/27335544@N05/2599642700 "cock soup"]] in the USA.
** Even better, chicken stock is also sometimes translated as "cock juice".
* This can even take place between dialects of English, such as with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28food%29 faggots]].
** Scotland does one better with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock-a-leekie_soup cock-a-leekie soup]] (do try to avoid thinking about it too much). (It's just a chicken soup with leeks. A good soup, but nothing alarming--which is saying something when you're talking about Scottish food.)
** And the Cornish gave us pasties (pronounced "PASS-tees"), a wrapped pastry case filled with beef, potatoes, turnips, and onions. These then spread to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, parts of Minnesota and Montana, and other places Cornish miners went. When people outside these areas read about eating pasties, they may be alarmed, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasties with good reason]].
** Except on ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'', where it's a popular breakfast cereal.
* The Latin American bread brand named Bimbo, which is after their mascot, a bear. Snickers among Americans ensue, where "bimbo" is an insult meaning "stupid girl."
** Bimbo packaging attempts to prevent this by instructing the consumer to "Say 'Beembo!'"
** They should be glad they are not selling it in Germany, since here "Bimbo" is a very rude term for blacks.
* A German food corporation's tried to market a very successful product, a vitamin-boosted hot chocolate mix, to English speaking countries at one point. They neglected to change the name, however, which was the rather unfortunate Scho-vit.[[note]]The name, for non-native English speakers/those who don't get it, sounds like "shove it," a rather coarse insult in English (with [[AssShove certain implications as to where "it" should be shoved]]). In German it's a portmanteau of ''Schokolade'', "chocolate," and ''Vitamin.'')[[/note]]
* Taco Bell once sold a tasty burrito with chili and cheese under the name of "[[http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=1889 Chilito]]" in some locations. After much snickering, they learned that "chilito" was Hispanic slang for "small penis" and went to "Chili Cheese Burrito" for the product name.
* West Africa produces a strong pepper sauce, which is actually quite tasty (overtones of a hot jalapeno) and is available through expat food stores in Great Britain and elsewhere. People from places like Ghana and Sierra Leone are also perfectly aware of what the name sounds like in English but see no reason to change it. In fact, they are ''very'' proud of Shitto Sauce. ("Shitto" just means "hot pepper").

* The bassoon is called a ''fagotto'' in Italian, plural ''fagotti.''
** Also, it's called a ''fagot'' in Spanish.
*** As the Polish word for a bassoon is the similar ''fagot'', an English-Polish dictionary has a note warning Polish speakers that the English word "faggot" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend does not have the same meaning.]]
*** The same goes for Swedish where it's called fagott, this causes hilarity when Swedes who are not well versed in English insults translate texts.
*** In Dutch it's also called a "fagot", which led to "hilarious" you=fagot image macros featuring bassoons in the days of jeff-k.
*** Bassoons are also called ''Fagotten'' in German. There's a famous story about Creator/JohannSebastianBach in which the famous composer gets into a fistfight/near-swordfight (it ended when Bach drew his sword) with a student of his, whom he called a ''Zippelfagottist''--"nanny-goat bassoonist" in German. This causes much snickering in English-speaking music history students even if they don't know what Bach's insult means.
*** In fairness, English has [[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faggot multiple meanings for the word]], including "bundle of sticks for firewood" and "meatballs from OopNorth". This lead to a miscommunication between an English witch-burner and an American soldier in ''Literature/GoodOmens''.
*** In Portuguese it's called "fagote".
* This was also mocked by the Swedish comedy duo 'Anders And Måns' -- the band 'Trojan', with an umlaut over the 'o'. This made it 'Tröjan', which means 'the shirt' in Swedish.
* In the 00s, London had a nightclub called [[XtremeKoolLetterz "Huje"]]. This caused some amusement among the local Polish community, as it literally means "dicks" in Polish. [[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame (No, it wasn't that kind of nightclub.)]]
* Music/LaRoux is named for singer Elly Jackson's flame-red hair and her androgynous look (''roux'' is the French word for a ''male'' redhead;[[note]]a female redhead is "rousse"[[/note]] ''la'' is the ''feminine'' definite article). However, "roux" also means a [[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roux sauce base/thickener made from flour and butter or some other sort of fat]]. Not quite the effect they were intending for in some countries where EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench.
* One of the most prominent Polish piano manufacturers is Calisia. The company's name is the Latin name for its native city of Kalisz. Allegedly, Calisia pianos had to be sold under a changed name in Finland, since the company name was similar to the Finnish word for "long underpants".
** This sounds improbable, since the Finnish word for long underpants is "kalsarit", which doesn't sound remotely the same. On the other hand the name sounds very much like "kalisija", which in turn would mean "a clattering thing", "a clatterer", which doesn't exactly promise a high quality musical instrument.

[[folder:Household items]]
** This was [[InvokedTrope done knowingly]], but is still damned funny.
** And paraphrased later by the satirical "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck will be the day they start making vacuum cleaners."
* One attempt to create a visual, text-free ad for laundry detergent backfired in the Middle East: The advertisement was a before/after picture with the detergent in the center, intended to be read left-to-right (dirty laundry + detergent = clean clothes). However, Middle East countries read things ''from right to left''....
** Sadly, a simple top-to-bottom order would have easily solved the problem.
* According to another story, a manufacturer of ball-point pens tried to advertise in Spanish that their pens "won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you". But they mistook ''embarazar'' ("to become pregnant") as being Spanish for "embarrass", and wound up with ads saying the pens "won't leak in your pocket and ''impregnate'' you".
** [[Webcomic/{{XKCD}} Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative, yet someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong.]]
** Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin, a real-life GentleGiant, told the same story on himself. He was sitting next to a timid young French girl at a very fancy dinner party. Apparently the embarrassed/pregnant mistake can happen in French too, because he tried to say "You are shy" and she blushed crimson, muttered something and excused herself. When he found out later he'd said "you are pregnant" he could have died of embarrassment himself. Awww.
* Unlike other companies, IKEA makes it a point to not relabel their products for foreign markets, no matter how stupid they sound in the local language. It's still backfired, though: IKEA got in trouble when it advertised its "Gutvik" brand bunk beds in Germany -- because while "Gutvik" is the name of a town in Sweden, it's an explicit sexual reference in German. [[note]]Albeit a grammatically wrong one; it sounds a lot like the expression "guter Fick," meaning "good fuck" or "good lay." ''Gut'' without an ending here wouldn't make sense.[[/note]]
** The remake of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' was perhaps thinking of this when they included the use of the "Frak" mirror set from IKEA in the show. "Frak" is the show's signature UnusualEuphemism.
*** The word "Frak" is in the [[Series/BattlestarGalactica 1978 original 70's series]] as well, it's just not [[ClusterFBomb used every 5th line]] like it is in the reimagining. IKEA did exist at the time, but didn't have any stores in the US and it's unlikely that the writers would have deliberately chosen the name of a set of mirrors from a (then) obscure foreign company.. it's just a coincidence.
*** Even funnier in Germany: "Viren" means viruses.
** The "Sarna" chairs are quite the joke in Spain, considering it means "scabies".
** IKEA also hit the news in Czech republic when their ads announced the "sale of Hoven" (a carpet named after Swedish town). In Czech, "hoven" is plural genitive case form of the word meaning "shit". The name by itself wasn't funny for grammatical reasons and the sale announcement was the first time the name could be interpreted as a meaningful Czech word in official ads. The carpet was later renamed to Fare in Czech republic.
** It has been noted with amusement on a few occasions that the two San Francisco Bay Area Ikea stores are located in Oakland and East Palo Alto, both having infamy for high murder rates. The pronunciation used for "Ikea" in America sounds very much like certain dialectic pronunciations of "I kill ya."
** IKEA got into ''another'' translation faux pas in December 2013 with its stuffed [[Literature/LittleRedRidingHood Big Bad Wolf]] Lufsig; although its Swedish name is simply a corruption of a Swedish word meaning "to lumber", their site for the People's Republic of China referred to Lufsig as "Lù mǔ xi". After a protester threw one at unpopular Hong Kong leader CY Leung ([[DontExplainTheJoke he had been nicknamed "the wolf" by his particularly large opposition]]), residents of Hong Kong discovered that in Cantonese, the name is pronounced "Lo Mai Sai", which sounds like "Lo Mai ''Hai''" ("your mother's [[CountryMatters cunt]]"). It gets worse when the act of throwing a Lufsig becomes part of the equation, as the Cantonese word for "throw" is a homophone of a word commonly translated as "[[PrecisionFStrike fuck]]" ("Diū"). As a result, Lufsig became a MemeticMutation and anti-government mascot, and were [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff flying off store shelves in Hong Kong and the mainland]] (with people ''lining up in the morning to buy them''). Thankfully there's a plus side to this ordeal; the Lufsig plushies were being sold as part of an annual charity campaign supporting UNICEF and Save the Children. But in response, IKEA changed the Chinese name to "Lu Fu Xi" (which is not only a closer transliteration, but contains a character meaning [[MeaningfulName "good fortune"]])
* There is a brand of lightbulbs called Osram. In Polish it means "I will shit on [something]".
* In Norwegian, shaving cream is called "Barber Skum".
* Fans of ''Red Dwarf'' are familiar with the all purpose, obscene sounding word "smeg"; "Oh, smeg, this is smeggin bad." "You're a smeggin idiot," etc. Is it possible that Lister keeps his lager in a refrigerator made by the Italian appliance manufactuer SMEG? Grant and Naylor insisted that they were unaware of the slang term "smegma" (often shortened to "smeg" in some regions of England), and chose it because they wanted a "futuristic" slang that had no existing English meaning.
* Marketers of the American toothpaste brand Colgate ran into problems when they decided to advertise in Latin America, as "colgate" (pronounced "call-GAH-teh") translates to "hang yourself" in ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo voseante]]'' varieties of Spanish.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barf_(soap) Barf detergent]]. It means "snow" in Persian but "vomit" in English.

* The cover of ''VideoGame/{{Left 4 Dead 2}}'' shows a zombie hand holding up 2 fingers seen from the back, which happens to be the British equivalent of giving the middle finger. Considering the massive HypeBacklash when the game was announced, this seems appropriate. Valve did figure it out in time for the UK release though, and [[http://www.gamegrep.com/showimage.php?pos=1&newsid=23652 reversed the hand]] so it's seen from the front, becoming [[{{Woolseyism}} the victory/peace sign]].
** The Japanese and German covers simply have the thumb [[http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/960511-left-4-dead-2/images/box-173855 tucked away]] rather than torn off, due to stricter ratings for violence and the former country's cultural association of missing fingers with the {{Yakuza}}.
* The original ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' concerns itself (although distantly) with a lost civilization called D'ni. Since the files for the game's various ages were visible in the CD-ROM's directory (Channelwood Age, Stoneship Age, etc.), the creators disguised the presence of D'ni -- a far more outlandish name -- by naming the folder "Dunny Age", after the name's pronunciation. Unfortunately, "dunny" is Australian slang for "outhouse".
** In Brazil, "pica" (pronounced the same way as "pika") is one of the dirtiest slangs around for ''penis''. As such, the franchise and its mascot are the butt of ''many'' jokes among Brazilians since the series' debut, since there was no effort to change the aspect.
** In Czech, "Pichu" is pronounced like the word for female genitalia (the CountryMatters equivalent). When the second generation of Pokémon arrived at the Czech Republic, kids everywhere ''had to'' joke about Pikachu's vagina. Pichu was censored out in some instalments, but no-one thought of changing the name. Later the pronunciation was adjusted to Pixu (x standing for the sound like 'ch' in German 'lachen', Spanish 'j' in 'Javier', or Scottish 'ch' in 'Loch Ness') or Pic-chu.
** The issue is further complicated by Pikachu's real-life inspiration, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pika the pika.]]
* ''MortalKombat: Deception'' was renamed ''Mortal Kombat: Mystification'' in France due to the French word "déception" meaning "disappointment".
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'': There's a character in this game named Doopliss. To Polish speaking people it sounds hilarious because it reminds them of "Dopuliz", meaning "ass licker".
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft: Mists of Pandaria'' is generating quite a laugh in Germany; ''Mist'' is German for "dung."
* This is unconfirmed, but it is possible that ''VideoGame/{{Tomba}}'' was renamed into ''Tombi!'' for the European markets because "tomba" is Italian for "grave" (as in cemetery).

* A German bag manufacturer started producing a type of bag in the 1990s which an Anglophonic person would call a messenger bag. This manufacturer named it ''bodybag''.

[[folder:Western Animation]]

* In Venezuela, there are several towns named Morón. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mor%C3%B3n,_Venezuela It's pronounced different, with emphasis on the second "o".]]
** Those Moróns are probably named after Morón, Spain, which is coincidentally the site of a NATO air base. This was used as a joke in ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'', when Moron briefly appears as one of the first two bases seized by Skynet.[[note]]The other is {{Franchise/Batman}}, Turkey[[/note]]
** There's also a city in Mongolia called Mörön, though it is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6r%C3%B6n_%28city%29 pronounced differently]]
*** Which comes full circle, considering the offensive origins of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid_race the term]].
** Moron is also the Welsh word for carrot.
*** Although it is pronounced, as with all Welsh words, with a short 'o'
* There is a mountain in Bavaria, called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wank_(mountain) Wank]] (pronounced ''Vank'').
* This wiki's trope {{Qurac}}, when pronounced, sounds exactly like Croatian slang for penis.
** It also sounds like the Turkish word for arid, which is quite fitting.
* The brand name Vicks was changed to Wick in Germany, because in German, "vick" is pronounced like ''Fick'', which means "fuck". And they most likely left the "s" out, because "Wicks" would sound like the German word for jerking off.
* The Mexican comic book called Memin Pinguin. It's possible you've actually read that last name as Pingüin (similar to "Pingüino", Spanish for penguin). That's because when the comic started being distributed outside Mexico, it was discovered that some South American countries use ''pinga'' as slang for penis, making the character's last name something awkward. In Mexico, ''pingo'' means something akin to ''little devil'' or ''mischevous kid'', the character was named based on this word. Therefore, the surname change broke this cultural reference.
* The new animation studio founded by Creator/HideakiAnno in 2006 is called "Studio Khara", named after the Greek word for "happiness" or "joy". Unfortunately, "khara" is also an Arabic slang word that means "shit"...
** And to complement it, in Spanish "ano" is "anus"...
* In Iceland there is an apartment rental company called "Fagmenn" (it means "Professionals"). You can also go down to the mall and see signs outside Hagkaup advertizing "Krap" (like a slushee, krap means slush).
* Of course, there's always Wackenhut, a security firm named after its founder, now [=G4S=].
* There is or was a German automotive-component manufacturer called KKK, initials infamously shared with the American racist hate group UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan.
** Ditto a Philippine revolutionary group, though that is more commonly known by the last K (Katipunan) because the other alternative was an OverlyLongName.
* ''Dikshit'' is a fairly common surname in India. 'Nuff said. It's pronounced exactly like you hope it wouldn't be pronounced.
* [[https://www.google.es/search?q=servicio+de+hosteleria+industrial+de+terrassa&client=firefox-a&hs=6WB&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=oR0cUprvCsGw7Abo74HICg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=799 Apparently]] there's a Spanish business named "Servicio de Hosteleria Industrial de Terrassa" (Terrassa's Industrial Catering Service) that uses the acronym S.H.I.T. in its sign. Surely the English speaking tourists get a chuckle of it, but it probably is funny even for the locals, because although fluency in English is not widespread in the Spanish population, most of them know enough to understand what "shit" means.
* UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}}'s name made many people scratch their heads in Germany, since it does sound like someone utterly incompetent butchered the word "Markt" ("market" in German). That already left a very bad first impression and it only became worse after it.
** In addition, "Wal" means "whale".
** Wang and Dong are common surnames in several Asian countries.
* Some Ashkenazi Jews have noted their personal awkwardness in speaking about ArnoldSchwarzenegger, since when said in a Yiddish accent his last name sounds exactly like the offensive (and somewhat redundant) Yiddish phrase for "black nigger."
* Much like Lady Gaga, Argentine footballer Fernando Gago [[https://reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/28q96u/ is the butt of jokes from Filipino football fans]], as "Gago" means "moron" or "asshole" in many Filipino languages. You have to feel for those wearing a Fernando Gago jersey in the streets of Manila.