[sdz]

I've always loved the Chinese naming for Coke. The article translates it as "delicious happiness," but it's actually more clever. The first two characters (ke kou) mean thirsty. The third character is the same as the first but means "can be" in the context. The fourth character (le) means happy. So all together, it literally means "[when you are] thirsty, [you] can be happy." As the other examples in the article show, it's quite easy to do the transliteration poorly, and a good one is far from inevitable. It's hard not to appreciate the amount of cleverness that went into "ke kou ke le".

[CoreDumpling]

<nitpick>

可口 (kě kǒu) does actually mean "delicious" -- you are thinking of 口渴 (kǒu kě) which means thirsty

</nitpick>

Admittedly, it is still a superior branding to Pepsi (百事可乐) which literally translates to "hundred events." Maybe this has something to do with how Pepsi has about 1/3 as much market share as Coca-Cola has in China [1].

[1] http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/07/29/coke-sees-chinas-mark...

[alanning]

<nitpick to your nitpick> 百事 could be translated as "hundred events" but could also just as easily be literally translated as "hundred things" which is much closer to its actual meaning: "everything" </nitpick>

Although by the number of promotional events that Pepsi puts on sponsoring concerts and such, I can very well see how "hundred events" may be closer to their actual marketing strategy. :)