The Hidden Message Behind China’s Biggest Brand Names
Turns out, they are not as random as you thought.
“So which phone did you buy?” your friend asks.
“Hsiao… me?” You fumble over the name, wondering why some Chinese brands sound so… unusual.
For Chinese speakers, some names make instant sense. Others carry whole histories, philosophies, or cultural jokes that never travel across the language barrier. But the real thrill isn’t just translating the words — it’s digging into what lives underneath:
The founder’s worldview, the ambition packed into each syllable, and the cultural aesthetics that shaped how these companies chose to present themselves to the world.
Crack open a name, and you often uncover something richer: not just where a brand came from, but where it thinks it’s going — and how it might quietly reshape the world along the way.
Xiaomi – The “Little Rice” With Big Ambition
Xiaomi literally means “little rice” — a small grain, humble and unassuming. To Chinese ears, the name instantly screams agrarian history, sustenance, and the quiet resilience of everyday life.
While Western tech brands often project premium polish or futurist glamour, Xiaomi leans into a different archetype: not the magician, but the everyman — accessible, grounded, familiar.
In a 2020 interview, founder Lei Jun explained that the name came from a line of poetry he loved: “佛观一粒米，大如须弥山。”
“In the eyes of the Buddha, a single grain of rice contains the mass of the sacred Mount Sumeru.”
It’s a Buddhism belief: the smallest thing can hold a universe. To an enlightened mind, nothing is trivial. The ordinary carries the infinite.
As for the “small” in Xiao — legend has it an early investor suggested it, arguing that internet-age companies shouldn’t try to be everything at once. A strategic nudge- dressed in a single syllable.
So the next time you trip over the name on the back of your phone — or maybe soon, your car — you’ll know it’s more than a quirky wordmark. It’s a brand rooted in spiritual imagination, built on humble beginnings, and aimed at something vast.
BYD – “Build Your Dreams”
BYD is now widely known as an abbreviation for “Build Your Dreams”, signalling ambition, confidence, and a vision for innovation.
But the origin story? Far less glamorous.
The company’s original Chinese name comes from the location of its first factory location: the village YaDi in Shenzhen, - a once fishing village turned global tech hub. The B was added later at an expo, simply to appear earlier in the marketing material, which is ranked alphabetically — a practical, almost accidental decision.
As the brand expanded and started gaining global recognition, the ‘Build Your Dream’ slogan was added- as an afterthought. I suppose it serves the purpose of strengthening its brand image, if not to make it easier to remember for a global audience, given how random the name would appear otherwise.
As the brand grew and began drawing global attention, the slogan “Build Your Dreams” was added — essentially an afterthought. It offered a cleaner, more uplifting narrative for international audiences and softened how arbitrary the letters might otherwise seem.
After all, BYD alone doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. 😛
DJI – “Great Frontier”
DJI. To non-Chinese speakers- a generic tech acronym. To those who know its Chinese name- a bold statement about every ambition it has for the future.
It comes from the Chinese word “Da Jiang” (大疆), which translates as “Great Boundary” or “Great Frontier.” The character 疆 (Jiang), which literally means ‘territory’, carries a connotation of vastness, grandeur, exploration, and expansion. Used in phrases like “开疆拓土” (expand territory/carve out new domains) or “辽阔疆域” (vast frontiers/boundless expanse), the character evokes ambition, courage and the pioneering spirit.
…while being perfectly aligned with its business speciality- drone technology, which is all about exploring new frontiers and reshaping human perception of space.
More than just a logo...
Look past the glossy logos and you find something more revealing: an entire ecosystem of culture, ambition, and worldview encoded into a name.
The headlines keep us fixated on the scoreboard—quarterly earnings, global sales spikes, the latest product with a shinier camera. But that obsession with numbers hides the deeper engine behind these companies: the brand ethos.
The internal compass that guides what they build, how they expand, and what they believe the future should look like- stuff that could shape the future trajectory long before shareholders see a graph.
Scratch the surface, and the picture becomes clearer. You start seeing what a brand stands for—and where it’s quietly trying to take the world next.
#BrandStrategy #ChineseBrands #ChinaBusiness #CulturalIntelligence #Xiaomi #DJI #BYD #EV #TechTrends #Marketing #GlobalBusiness #CulturalBranding #BrandIdentity #TechCulture
Thanks for reading. 📖🧡 If you’re curious about how China builds, names, and positions its brands, I recommend exploring work that explores the wider landscape from Gentlemen Marketing Agency, Jing Daily, Jack Porteous and China-Britain Business Council, to name a few.
SOURCES:
Lei, J. (2020, Nov 26). Why is Xiaomi called Xiaomi? Inspiration came from a line of poetry. Sina Tech. Link
Wang, C. (2022, Apr 12). How did BYD get its name? Casually chosen at first, just for easier registration. Sohu. Link
DJI Innovations. (n.d.). DJI Innovations. Wikipedia. Link
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