Ideas for a company name?

[Lu]

For the past six months or so I've been doing various freelance projects, and as I'm going to continue to do so in the forseeable future, I registered my own company a week ago. I had come up with a nice name for it, but there is already another translation company with a similar name so I'm planning to change it. Problem is, it's really hard to come up with something decent. I'm not even aiming at the best name ever that will cause lines of clients at my door, just something halfway decent that has some relation to what I do. So I hope perhaps someone here has an idea.

 

I do translation and interpretation, but also various other sinological services, so the name should not be too narrow. The current name is 'Grenzeloos Chinees' (Chinese without borders, limitless Chinese) but there is already a Grenzeloos translation company, so it's not ideal. I came up with Chinese Unlimited but there is already a translation/interpretation company called China Unlimited, so that's out. My surname would work, but it would need some kind of indication of what I do. My dad suggested '[surname] Sinologist' but most people won't know what a sinologist is. I considered '[surname] Chinese translation and communication', which covers most of what I (can) do but is rather long and un-catchy. One can name a company after one's children, but I don't have any children so that's also out. The name can be in Dutch, English or Chinese, but in the latter case it'd have to be pronouncable by someone not knowing any Chinese and not have any funny associations (which I don't trust myself to recognise, I'm too used to Chinese to see what other people might find funny). Lastly, 'Chinese' (or 'Chinees') in the name would work, but not 'China' as I don't want to exclude Taiwan (and don't want to explicitly mention it either, for obvious reasons).

 

Does anyone here have a good idea? Thanks for any advice.

[skylee]

How about Chinese Rendition or Chinese Focus?

[Lu]

Something with 'Focus' might work! Chinese Focus doesn't exist yet, neither does China Focus (surprisingly). There are three translation bureaus called Focus, but two only do English and the other one doesn't offer Chinese either, so that shouldn't be a problem (and besides if it were a problem I'd assume they'd be in each other's way already). 'Chinese Focus' might not be ideal if people read it in Dutch instead of English, it's spelled exactly the same and means about the same thing, but is a bit clunky grammatically. But let me think about the possibilities...

 

'Rendition' would cover the work, but many Dutch people might not know what it means, so that's perhaps not ideal.

 

Thanks for the ideas! And do post if you have any more :-)

[li3wei1]

'Rendition' is far more limiting than 'focus', and it also means the illegal transportation of prisoners to foreign jurisdictions to torture them. I'm assuming that's not part of your business plan.  

[Lu]

 

the illegal transportation of prisoners to foreign jurisdictions to torture them. I'm assuming that's not part of your business plan. 

Not really planning to get into that line of work, no.

[skylee]

Any news on the company name?

[Jeremy Andrews]

I could come up with a few ideas if you haven't already picked something:

Marco Polo Translation Services

Middle Kingdom Communications

Zhongwen Communications

Laoshi Translation Services

Any of those sound good?

[skylee]

Laoshi sounds similar to lousy ... what is laoshi supposed to mean?

[Jeremy Andrews]

Laoshi sounds similar to lousy ... what is laoshi supposed to mean?

Well, I think that word means "Teacher," so it's supposed to convey the connotation that they're very wise and learned, thus they produce very good Chinese translations. It's supposed to be sort of like saying "Professor's Translation Services" in English.

I guess it could sound like "lousy" depending on the accent, although I thought it was different enough from "lousy" to avoid confusion. Still, I guess it could work if you were going for something ironic/cute. But there are probably better choices. Even if you did really want to go the ironic/cute route, you'd probably want to go with "Laozi" to make sure everyone got the point.

[Lu]

Thanks again for all the ideas. I changed my company's name to Focus Chinese, there are a bunch of translation companies with similar names that are apparently not in each other's way, so this name is better.

Jeremy: I considered a Chinese name (something with Hanyu perhaps) but Dutch people would butcher the pronunciation, so I decided against it. Marco Polo is a good name, which is why it is already in use by a 同行 of mine :-)