Name Awards

The good, the bad and the ugly of new auto names.

In the automobile world, new years come earlier than the calendar shows. And each year brings a crop of new models, along with names for us to review. A vehicle’s name is a major part of its branding and positioning – and outside of real estate – the biggest consumer purchases for most families. So they have big marketing programs that we can all use for learning and teaching.

The new Panamera from Porsche might look ugly (don’t all Porsches – until you get used to them?) but it has a very good, cool name. More than that, the name has a story of a heritage and races behind it, evolving from the Panamericana – a one off special built for Ferry Porsche himself for his 80th birthday – and named after a famed race in Mexico.

I was impressed with the name Forte for the new Kia model after hearing it on TV commercials, until I visited the website to get more data. That is when I discovered it is listed as Cerato/Forte and often Cerato only. Guess they don’t have Spanish dictionaries in Korea, and that someone only woke up once the car was brought into Southern California and politely asked if they really wanted to name a car “wax ointment”. Now they have to deal with the mess of one model worldwide with two different names.

Then there is the Suzuki Kizashi. Japanese names have been accepted worldwide for cars, but I really don’t think these names fit together. They are hard to say, and in any language, ending a word and starting the next (in a name) with the same syllable (or phonetic sound as is the case in Japan), makes for awkward pronunciation and spelling confusion. My local paper says the name (pronounced Kee Zah Shee) means something great is coming. Boy, did they swallow some marketing spin or what.

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