Unintentionally Offensive Product Names Posted Tue, 05 Feb 2008

I don't think I've been this amused since Reebok accidentally named a shoe after a demon that sexually assaults women.

Want to contribute to my list of unintentionally offensive product names?

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Responses to This Post

Hahaha... Thanks a billion, I had a good laugh.

Especially the Lolita Bed where I'm sure one of the website guys threw it to the rest of his ignorant team without expecting everyone to think it sounded cool...

:)
Posted by JaXX at Tue Feb 5 16:39:40 2008
Maybe the Lolita line would do better in Japan where they have the lolita fashion[0]?
How does naming something 'lolita' cause real problems when most folks aren't literate enough to know what it may imply? Does the word imbue some magical/supernatural power to the bed?

[0]www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Gothic-Lolita
(using akismet-fooling tactics)
Posted by Kevin Mark at Tue Feb 5 16:58:45 2008
While doing a uni paper on IPTV lately I stumbled upon the service/product called "Virgin on Demand".
Posted by fa at Tue Feb 5 18:17:45 2008
The list on your wikipedia site reminds me of Lonsdale, a brand name that gets used by neo-nazis because you can read the letters NSDA if you leave your jacket half open. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonsdale_(brand)

Note that the manufacturer is very unhappy about this and is actively trying to fight racism.
Posted by Walther at Tue Feb 5 18:52:43 2008
There's another category of names that aren't offensive to the natives of a region, but that are accidentally amusing to foreigners.

My wife once studied in Basel, Switzerland, which has a downtown square named Barfuesserplatz ("barefoot plaza", perhaps).  However, everyone refers to it as Barfi.  Of course, McDonalds has managed to plant its flag on perhaps every prime location in most European cities, so there's a Barfi McDonalds.  When I saw the sign, I said "no kidding".
Posted by Joe Buck at Tue Feb 5 19:07:45 2008
In Australia, we have Coon Cheese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_cheese
Posted by Andrew at Tue Feb 5 21:52:44 2008
Ikea (furniture company) sells some product with the name "Kaki". "Kaki" is actually the babytalk for shit in the hungarian language. Not too offensive, but...
Posted by Pistahh at Wed Feb 6 02:26:08 2008
No idea what the story is behind the "Turbo Cojones" ad Vokswagen apparently did in Miami, and it's not the product name.  AFAIK "cojones" is quite rude (but I'm not native in spanish, english or spanglish, so YMMV.)

(found on the Intarweb)

http://fortytwo.ch/~avbidder/2006curioso_volkswagen_miami.jpg
Posted by cmot at Wed Feb 6 08:46:24 2008
Ikea named a bed for children "Gutvik". When you speak this aloud with a german accent you will hear a "gut fick" which means "Good fuck" in english. :D More infos under http://www.scanpress.de/panorama/49-0.html
Posted by Christoph Langner at Wed Feb 6 08:53:08 2008
Good laugh!

I've always wondered how the Mexican food restaurant "Chi Chis" made it.  "Chi Chis" in spanish is slang for "tits". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi's
Posted by Dustin at Wed Feb 6 16:41:40 2008
The astonishing thing about these is that it's not that they're naming them after little known offensive (or at least highly product unsuitable) things. They're innocently naming them after really quite well known sexually charged words. Sure, it's not quite as bad as releasing the "Slut" bed for infants, but really. "Incubus" in particular seems like something that at least one person at Reebok should have known.
Posted by Mary at Thu Feb 7 00:17:42 2008
http://brandfailures.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-brand-culture-failures-part-1.html is a pretty good list.
Posted by mattl at Fri Feb 8 06:16:57 2008
I doubled up with laughter :-D

I think you heard about Volkswagen Passat. In Russian slang 'Passat' means 'to go to WC' :-)
Posted by fonts at Fri Feb 8 06:19:06 2008
fonts,
but Passat is a bad example here, as Passat is the German word for "Trade wind" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_wind and the VW Passat is - at least to my knowledge - only sold in German-speaking countries, so not that bad.
Correct me if I'm wrong :)
Posted by fa at Fri Feb 8 10:23:01 2008

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