A name that works beautifully in Chinese may be unpronounceable in French, already registered in Germany, or carry an unfortunate meaning in Spanish. Europe is not one linguistic market, and a name is the one asset you cannot cheaply change once distributors, packaging and search results have accumulated around it.
The four tests, in order of cost
- Say it out loud to a French, a German and a Spanish speaker. If all three pronounce it differently, your brand has three names and none of them will be searched for correctly.
- Check what it means, and what it nearly means. Not only dictionaries — slang and near-homophones are where the problems are.
- Search the trademark registers for the EU and for your priority countries, in your classes. A name already registered by someone else in your category is not available, whatever the domain situation.
- Then check the domain and the handles. This is the step everyone does first and it is the least decisive of the four.
Keep the Chinese name, add a European one
These do not have to be translations of each other, and forcing them to be usually produces a bad version of one. Many successful brands carry a Chinese name that works in Chinese and a Latin-script name that works in Europe, linked by a visual identity rather than by meaning. What matters is that the two are consistently paired, so that a buyer who encounters one can find the other.
Register before you announce
Europe, like China, largely operates on first-to-file. Announcing a name at a trade fair before filing it is an avoidable risk, and the cost of filing is trivial next to the cost of rebranding a product that has started selling.
Trademark availability is a legal assessment, not a search result. Use the registers to eliminate obvious conflicts, then have a trademark attorney confirm before you commit the name to packaging.