Creative Naming Fights for Freedom from Censors

In our daily quest to create names that are strategically on-target AND available for trademark, our verbal branding team employs the full range of symbolism, metaphors and illusions. With that, we are always on the look-out for new and creative word and letter usages.

One fairly new naming trend uses letter strings to make a name that phonetically sounds like a word…think Motorola RAZR and KRZR. While we explore this type of naming strategy to help our clients pass the trademark process, some artists are using a similar strategy to foil censorship policies.

A Chinese “children’s” song on YouTube tells the simple story of the “Grass Mud Horse” (picture a lama) that lives in “Ma Le Desert” and battles the “river crab” to protect its grass. If you think that sounds cryptic, it’s only because you don’t speak Chinese.

What immediately stands out to any Chinese listener is that Grass Mud Horse sounds a lot like a particularly offensive expletive about your mom; and it’s pretty much the same story for the Ma Le Desert. Here’s where the song turns political: The evil River Crab is phonetically the same as harmony, which is code for the Chinese censorship policy.

By employing this naming strategy – in true Bart Simpson form – the protestors have been able to speak out, without being filtered by the censors.

For a subversive example you can actually sing along to, albeit less noble in its struggle, listen to Britney Spears’ “If You Seek Amy,” which phonetically sounds like she’s spelling out that same, popular bad word.