Chinese brands monopolize the Android mobile market, so recommending mobiles ends up being an exercise in pronunciation. We all know Xiaomi, Huawei or OPPO, but, what do their names mean?
Everything has a reason, even if that reason is something as simple as “it sounded good”. We will try to unravel meanings of eight major chinese mobile brands: Xiaomi, Redmi, POCO, OPPO, Realme, Vivo, Huawei and Honor.
Xiaomi
Xiaomi’s original name in Chinese is 小米, which literally translates to millet, a type of cereal, but is made up of two parts: Xiao (小) is small and mi (米) is rice, so if we focus in the strict sense of the name, it is small rice. It is pronounced something like “tsia-o-mi”.
The story goes further and, in fact, has several interpretations. According to Lei Jun, the name of Xiaomi can be interpreted as the union of Xiao, the Buddhist concept of “a grain of Buddhist rice is bigger than a mountain”, and Mi, which is the same acronym for Mobile Internet that Mission Impossibledepending on the day.
Redmi
Redmi was for many years the name of a Xiaomi sub-brand, until it launched its solo career three years ago. Its Chinese name is 红米, the combination of red (红) and rice (米). All together, means brown rice. In Chinese it is pronounced totally differently, sounding something similar to “jong-mi”
Xiaomi doesn’t -yet- have an origin story for Redmi, although Xiaomi initially launched names for its origin brand like Red Star, which was in use. The opportunity to introduce the color red into the mark It came with the Redmi series and the company didn’t miss the chance.
A LITTLE
POCO is a brand that debuted with a single model, the legendary Pocophone F1, still under the Xiaomi brand. After this successful launch and a certain period of uncertainty, the brand distanced itself from Xiaomi until it also obtained its independence as an independent entity.
Although it is a Chinese brand, POCO does not exist in China and therefore predictably has no name in Chinese. The brand developed in India before entering the global market. Its meaning? Besides playing -perhaps too much- with the idea of the meaning of “small” in Spanish, apparently it’s also an acronym for Mighty Cool.
Oppo
In BBK Electronics’ lineup, OPPO is the leading mobile brand. OPPO’s name in Chinese is 欧普, which makes it no way nada except OPPO. In Chinese, it’s pronounced something like “oupu”, but all of BBK’s sub-brands have opted for easy-to-pronounce names globally, so the standard pronunciation of “oppo” is correct.
There doesn’t seem to be any interesting story behind the name beyond being easy to remember, youth appealing and international. One theory of the origin of the name is that was inspired by the Latin word opal, opal.
Long live
Also part of the BBK Electronics conglomerate, Vivo is another brand that has opted for a simple, easy-to-pronounce international name. In Live China it is called 维沃, which does not mean anything on its own and is pronounced something similar to “wei-boa”. Don’t pronounce it like that: you should pronounce it “alive”, without further ado.
Again, its creators opted for a name short, easy to recognize and pronounce, although there are theories about the origin of the inspiration. It would also be Latin, but from the expression “Vivo, Vivo!”, which would be the equivalent of “Viva!” in Spanish.
Kingdom
We end the BBK Electronics brands review with Realme, whose origin story is a bit less esoteric. In 2010, Realme first appeared in 2010 as the OPPO Real sub-brand from OPPO. In 2018, it became an independent brand.
Realme is called 真我 in his native China, which is the predictable union of “real” (真) and “me” (我). So it sounds quite different if you try to pronounce it in its original language: something like “chien-juo”. There doesn’t seem to be a big story behind it beyond focus on youth.
Huawei
From Huawei we have a pretty solid story about its origin. Company founder Ren Zhengfei explained that the name of Huawei comes from a slogan he saw on a wall: 中华有为 or Zhōng huá yǒu wéi, which translates to “China promises” This is how Huawei was born.
The name is composed of Hua (华) and Wei (为), which can mean both “Thinking of China” like “Make the difference”. The name itself caused some headaches for Huawei as it is difficult for foreigners to pronounce. In Chinese, it’s pronounced something like “huah-wei”.
Honor
Honor was first a series of Honor, later a separate and completely separate brand from Huawei after the US ban. On this occasion, the brand has a different name in China and the rest of the world.
In China, it is called 荣耀, which translates to glory and it’s pronounced something like “long-niao”. For the global market, a name was chosen along the same lines, but differently, Honor. Obviously, it means exactly that, honor.
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