What’s in a Name? Classification of Proper Names by Language

5. Classification of proper names by language 
 
As argued above, the brand name plays a central role in advertisements and the 
language of proper names is often used to give a product or a shop a foreign flavour. 
At the same time, these elements are difficult to analyse in terms of the language in 
which they are written. After all, languages have no clear-cut borders: due to genetic 
relatedness and language contact, many names ‘belong’ to more than one language. 
Proper names seem to be more readily borrowed or adopted from another language 
than common nouns. 
The American sports brand Nike, for example, was named after the Greek 
goddess of victory. Does this imply that Nike is a Greek name or does this name 
become part of any language in which it is used? To put it more generally, how 
should proper names be classified by language? The answer to this question has 
important implications for the coding of signs in linguistic landscape research. 
Evidence in favour of the view that names are part of specific languages rather 
than any language is the fact that names can be adapted to different contexts. In some 
countries, like China, Poland and Surinam, it is common for people to ‘translate’ their 
first names when they introduce themselves to foreigners. They replace their names 
either by a cognate in another language, for example Dutch Pieter for the Polish name 
Piotr, or even by an unrelated name in another language. 
The names of monarchs, popes, and non-contemporary authors as well as 
place-names are commonly translated. Foreign names for geographic proper names 
are called exonyms. Fourment-Berni Canani (1994) discusses the (im)possibility of 
translating proper names. He gives the examples of the place-names Venice and 
London. The Italian city Venezia has been renamed Venice in English and Venise in 
French. A city in the American state California is also called Venice, but this name is 
not changed into Venezia in Italian and Venise in French. Similarly, the English city 
London has been renamed Londres in French and Londra in Italian. However, the 
Canadian city called London is not translated into French and Italian in this way. 
Thus, as Fourment-Berni Canani concludes, a place-name can be translated if the 
place, as a unique referent, has already been renamed in the target language. 
That names can be context-specific is also illustrated by the fact that some 
international brands operate under different names in different countries. Unilever’s 
ice cream brand, the so-called Heartbrand, is an example of this. Heartbrand products 
are sold in more than forty countries. The brand is known as Algida (Italy), Kibon 
(Brazil), Langnese (Germany), Ola (the Netherlands), Streets (Australia), Wall’s 
(United Kingdom and most parts of Asia), etc. This is a result of its creation from a 

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large number of local businesses with established names. The logos of the Heartbrand 
contain different names, but they share the same heart (see figure 1). 
Figure 1. Different Heartbrand logos
(Originally, the hearts are red and yellow and the names are blue.) 
Although these examples show that names can be part of specific languages or 
cultures, there are also arguments in favour of the view that names are part of any 
language in which they are used. In an article on language identification for library 
catalogues, Bade (2006: 193) writes: “Proper names present special problems not only 
for theories of language but also for indexing and language identification, whether 
performed by human or mechanical agents”. He illustrates these problems with the 
book title Zheng He, which is the name of a famous Chinese naval officer, written in 
Roman script. The multilingual book contains four essays in German, three in French 
and one in English. Although the name Zheng He is originally Chinese, it appears as 
German, French and English in these essays. Bade (2006: 198) reasons: 
“When we write Zheng He in what language and script are we writing? [...] The 
answer can only be that it is not in ‘a language’ at all, but is in Chinese, English, 
French and German to be read and understood in whichever language(s) the reader 
understands. Yet the question, for most readers, is completely irrelevant. Zheng He is