Coming up with names can be tricky. I know, because my son was known simply as ‘The Baby’ or ‘The Boy’ for the first few weeks of his life.
Car brands spend a lot of time (and presumably money) deliberating this sort of stuff, too. Their job is arguably made harder because they can’t use a name that’s already used, and by having to please thousands of customers in diverse locations all over the world. Perhaps inevitably, they don’t always hit the mark.
Are car names getting sillier, though? I’ve been pondering this because there have been a few recent examples that struck me as especially peculiar. First up, there’s the Fiat Grizzly. Fiat car names usually have some kind of historical or Italian reference, but Grizzly? Really? Well, it's larger and more powerful than a Panda, geddit?
Then there’s the Dacia Striker. Unveiled just a few months before the World Cup, perhaps it’s a timely choice that capitalises on football fever. Or perhaps it’s just (to me, at least) a strangely inappropriate name for a car. Although Dacia has previous, having already brought us the Duster and the Jogger: names more commonly associated with a household cleaning tool and a dated term for someone who runs a lot.
Consider too the Hyundai Inster (coincidentally named Casper - the same as my son - in its home market of South Korea). It sounds like it’s trying to be a bit ‘down with the kids’: ’Insta’ or ‘In crowd’, maybe. But according to Hyundai it stands for “intimate” and “innovative”. Hmmm.
Anyway, a nonsense name hasn’t stopped the Duster, Jogger or Inster being sales hits. In fact, I wonder whether a car’s name has any impact on its popularity at all, because there are a lot of big-selling models with names that, when you stop and think about them, might seem off-putting.
One that springs to mind is the Nissan Qashqai. When it was originally launched, most people thought the name ‘Qashqai’ was, at the least, unusual (it’s actually the name of an Iranian tribe). At the time, Nissan was a brand known for sensible names (and sensible cars) such as the Almera, Primera and Micra. But people quickly got used to the name and it clearly didn't hurt sales.
In fact, some people referred to the Qashqai as ‘Cash Cow’ because that’s precisely what it proved to be for Nissan.
Continuing the theme of oddly-named cars that have been money machines for their maker, there's the Porsche Cayenne. Yep, a luxury SUV named after a type of pepper. But no-one batted an eyelid. The Cayenne went on to more or less save Porsche from bankruptcy and it remains one of its best-selling models.
Would the Cayenne have done the business if it had been named the Porsche Tomato? Possibly not, because some car names are perhaps too ‘out-there’. In my book, Grizzly might just cross the line.
Others arguably have in the past. Examples include the Ford Probe (too medical) and the Renault Wind (too open to misinterpretation/innuendo). And, more recently, the Ora Funky Cat. These are names you might think twice about uttering to a friend or colleague when you’re asked what kind of car you drive. As if to prove the point, the Funky Cat had its name changed to Ora 03 a little more than a year after it went on sale in the UK. It didn’t help to boost sluggish sales, but it shows that the name may have been something of a turn-off.
Some car names get lost in translation, of course. The Volkswagen E-Up, for example. A straightforward title for the electric version of Volkswagen’s Up city car, sure, but saying it out loud sounds a bit too much like a bad impression of someone from Yorkshire.
And what about the Alfa Romeo Tonale? Depending on your Italian pronunciation skills, possibly a bit too close to ‘toenail’. Some names that do work in the UK don’t work elsewhere. Think back to the classic Toyota MR2, for example. It stands for mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-seater but in France it’s pronounced ‘M-R-deux’. Which sounds a lot like ‘merde’. I’m sure you don’t need me to translate.
Other names are simply unfortunate because they describe a car either too accurately or ironically. The Hyundai Trajet was, in both name and execution, too close to ‘tragic’. The Mitsubishi Carisma, on the other hand, was anything but charismatic.
Then there are irritating names. Ferrari went a bit ‘meta’ with LaFerrari, bundling up brand and model into something grandiose and confusing. Yes, the Ferrari LaFerrari. Kia also tried a bit too hard with ‘cee’d’, endowing it with both a lower-case C and an erroneous apostrophe. The three-door version was even more cringey: ‘pro_cee’d’.
Thankfully, Kia ditched the gimmicky punctuation over time, and it has since adopted a much more literal (and some might say boring) naming strategy. Its latest electric models? The EV2, EV3, EV4 and EV5. Kia’s new ‘does what it says on the tin’ policy is mirrored by that of Polestar (Polestar 1, Polestar 2 etc) and many other brands that use a simple combination of letters and numbers for their models. No fuss, and no room for misinterpretation.
And that highlights the thing about car names. Most people don’t care. Price, practicality, driving experience, design, brand image, reliability… all of these things tend to matter more. And that’s understandable. After all, you’re probably not that bothered about the model name of your fridge, TV or washing machine. That's if you know it at all.
And besides, once you’ve settled on a name it’s just something that you simply get used to or grow into. Just ask my son.
Top 5 cars with silly names
Renault Wind
This diddy French roadster was based on the Twingo and was only on sale for two years in the UK. Maybe the name put people off.
Ford Probe
A stylish coupe sold new between 1992 and 1997, the Probe looked great. A name shared with a medical procedure? Not so great.
Mazda Bongo Friendee
Ok, it was never officially sold in the UK, but this Japanese import has a cult following thanks to its campervan-style versatility and bonkers name.
Ora Funky Cat
One of the early wave of Chinese electric cars, a change of name to Ora 03 couldn’t stop this retro-styled hatch from being dropped after just four years on sale.
Skoda Peaq
Peak Skoda or peak silly name? All of Skoda’s modern SUVs have a name ending in Q, hence the weird misspelling for its new seven-seat electric SUV.
