At Forbes Asia, Peter Lyon has written a fun article about Japanese car names and how they are perceived in English. As he says, “Often you will come across a name that is simply unusable in an English setting but works in Japan.”

As an example, take the Mitsubishi Canter Guts (a real car). The word “guts” doesn’t have the intestinal nuance it does in English. It basically translates into Japanese as something with strength and power. In fact, it has a positive meaning in Japan. They even have the phrase “guts pose” which renders into English as “punch the air” or “fist pump.”

And what about the Toyota Isis? Launched in 2004, long before the militant group was formed in Iraq and Syria, the name Isis actually refers to a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion.

Want to know more? Click through to read on!

Professor Pascaline Faure (Pierre and Marie Curie School of Medicine, Sorbonne University, Paris, France) had an interview with Tom Whipple of the Times (London) about her forthcoming article in Names entitled “Natesto®. What Else? New Trends in Drug Naming”. In this article, Professor Faure discusses recent trends in drug names – some of which “sounded like espresso coffee machines, such as Ingrezza, Tagrisso, Natesto, Afrezza and Portrazza.”

You can download a scanned version of the article here.

At the Nameberry blog, Claire Bristow writes about Christmas babies, thankful names for miracle babies, and inspiration from high society. Here are some highlights:

In England, Santa visited a hospital – to give birth. It made the news when a mother called Santa had a baby girl called Rebeka on Christmas day, but it’s not an uncommon name in the mother’s home country of Latvia: it was in the top 100 until 2010.

Mindy Kaling has revealed her daughter Katherine’s middle name, Swati – the name of Mindy’s late mother.

Parents in England have named their daughter Abbey Raye Loxley: Abbey after a doctor named Abey who helped with their fertility treatment, Raye as in a ray of sunshine, and Loxley after a clinic they used.

Head over to Nameberry to find out more!

 

Fenty Beauty is following up its holiday makeup launch with classic lipsticks. Each hue is based on a different mood, and the names are just as bold as the shades.

Fenty Beauty’s matte lipsticks are called Mattemoiselle. The Mattemoiselle lipsticks comes in 14 different shades that have equally as quirky names. According to the press release, each shade was named with a different mood in mind. Some of them are obvious — like the “moody brown” PMS or the bright orange Up 2 No Good hue. Others are a little more creative, like Ma’Damn and the deep green Midnight Wasabi.

“Lipstick is all about having fun and expressing your mood at any given moment,” Rihanna says in the press release. “This collection makes it easier than ever because there’s a color for everyone.” Click through to this article at the Bustle to find out more!

In a Korean Starbucks, the baristas’ nametags nearly all bear, in bold, chalky, Roman capital letters, names like SALLY or RYAN or ANGIE. It turns out to have come down from corporate: “Starbucks staff are required to have nicknames,” writes the Korea Times‘ Kim Young-jin. “The reason, company officials say, is to create a culture in which all ‘partners’ are equal.”

In this Korea Blog post by Colin Marshall at the LA Review of Books, he looks at the phenomenon of Koreans using “English” names in Seoul – who does it? And why? And what makes a name “English”?

The top baby names of and pop culture rank among the most popular sources for dog names, according to Rover.com’s fifth annual report of the year’s most popular dog names.

Rover’s data revealed that now more than ever, Americans turn to popular culture for dog name inspiration. In 2017, 8 percent of all dog names were clearly pop culture-influenced. From “Stranger Things” to “Star Wars,” pet owners are naming their dogs after their favorite icons. Also, for the third year in a row, the top baby names of the year are among the most popular dog names. The humanization of dogs has been trending upward every year, with human-inspired names making up a whopping 44 percent of all dog names in 2017—up 57 percent from 2016.

Click through to this article at Pet Products News to find out the most popular dog names!

One of the top brands of sanitary napkins in India is “Whisper”, a name that comes from the shame and secrecy associated with buying such a product. Owned by Procter & Gamble, the sanitary napkin is called “Always” in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Africa. In India and other Asian countries, however, the brand is called “Whisper”.

Now, a petition on Change.org started by Shreya Gupta of Bengaluru is asking Whisper to change its name. In a video that goes with the petition, two young women talk about the power of a name and how ‘Whisper’ contributes to creating a negative idea about menstruation. The women say that despite all of Whisper’s efforts to break the taboo around menstruation through their progressive advertising, the brand name sends out a subliminal message – that you have to be secretive about your period and whisper about it.

Read this article at The News Minute to find out more about the petition and to watch the video!

Do you know where the surnames Wright, Fletcher, Cooper, and Smith come from? They all started as the names of occupations! Many surnames come from a person’s job, although you won’t find many coopers (someone who makes or repairs wooden casks or tubs) around these days. Check out this article at Merriam-Webster that explains the origins of these names and more – including, of course, Webster!