In conversation with a former colleague earlier today, I was reminded for no particular reason, of a furore that erupted in what is known as the Southern Cone of South America (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), when Mitsubishi introduced their Pajero model, (marketed in the UK as the Shogun). Thinking that this would be ideal for the local terrain, the Japanese were somewhat surprised that it wasn't selling very well. Curious to discover the reason for the sluggish sales, several of Mitsubishi's senior beings made the long trip to Argentina (their biggest potential market), to find out why. After some discussion, the Argentinian dealers had to make an embarrassing explanation: the word Pajero in that part of the world means w*nker. Further discussions took place, following which it was decided that the name would be changed to Montero (hunter), and that free badges would be offered to all those who had already purchased the vehicle. Apparently, sales increased rapidly after this intervention.
Vauxhall also made a fundamental error with the Nova. Ironically, it was manufactured in Spain, and some bright spark in Luton, presumably thought it would be clever to use what they believed was a Spanish word to market it. The problem was, that 'No vai' in Spanish means 'No go' and can easily sound like nova when spoken in some Spanish accents.
'Nueva' is the word for new in Spanish, but it is 'Nova' in Portuguese, though the car never sold there well, either. Most of the equivalent models used in Continental Europe were produced by Opel. The whole story is disputed by Snopes, but unsurprisingly, they put a US/Latin American slant on the whole story. I was originally told this story by a Spaniard.
Perhaps the biggest mistake of all though was made by Rolls-Royce of all people. When planning to call their latest model Silver Mist, it was pointed out that it would not sell in Germany, where their previous models had sold well. Further investigations revealed the news that the German word for sh*t is mist. Thus the Silver Shadow was born...
https://www.driving.co.uk/news/test-you ... lver-mist/
Small wonder then, that today so many cars carry anodyne names.