Opinions, knowledge and resources from China Checkup's expert contributors
We often come across China company English names which we feel are misleading.
They are misleading for a number of reasons - some accidental, some deliberate, some cynical - but the root cause is that companies from Mainland China are registered in the Chinese language, not in English.
Here we give some background on China company English names and introduce the 5 ways in which we find they can be misleading.
Have you ever wondered how and why Chinese company English names are chosen?
Many articles have been written discussing how foreign companies chose their Chinese name, but there has been very little analysis about the opposite situation.
China Checkup decided to take a closer look at this issue. Our research has identified how and why Chinese company English names are picked and we have categorized the different approaches Chinese companies have taken.
If you saw a list of company names in Chinese it would usually be safe to assume that they are companies from Mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.
But did you know there are some other countries where it is possible to register company names in Chinese?
In recent years some countries have found a new stream of clients from China, a process which they help facilitate by allowing companies to be established with an official Chinese name.
As a foreigner, when you read Chinese business names in English you naturally assume that the name you are reading is the name of the company.
In Mainland China and Taiwan, and this can be difficult to comprehend, the only official Chinese business names are those written in Chinese characters, which means the English names are usually just translations.
If you are looking at Chinese companies online, you may notice that it’s quite common for Chinese website names to include digits. This is much less common with the names of English-language websites, so what’s going on?
