
WordSafety: Check a name for unwanted meanings in foreign languages - fn1
http://wordsafety.com/
======
aijony
I think this is a great idea for people for people wanting to respect other's
sensitivity.

However, I also think that it is even more important for people to respect
other languages/cultures by not attributing their own independent negative
connotations.

For example when it comes to naming a project, a Swede shouldn't get offended
by an English-speaker using "fan" (Swedish swear for devil), and an English
speaker shouldn't get offended by a Swede using "slut" (Swedish root for
stop/end).

Maybe I'm wrong, but this is a neat service nonetheless.

~~~
nucleardog
The name is going to be the first thing many people see, well before finding
out the name has roots in another language or culture.

We can talk about how people _should_ act, but the simple fact is a Swedish
developer releasing SkrappostSlut or a Chinese developer releasing NiggaApp
are probably not going to get a lot of traction in English markets and I’d
expect similar issues the other direction. If those markets are important to
your business, it’s probably wise to at least be aware of these sorts of
issues.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
A real-world example would be the Japanese university that changed the
official English translation of its name to Kindai University; it's original
name, using a direct transliteration, was Kinki University which apparently
caused awkwardness.

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/01/national/japans...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/01/national/japans-
kinki-university-changes-name-silence-jokes/)

~~~
mci
There is also the Bonerowski Palace hotel in Krakow, formerly known as the
Boner Palace.

------
pavlov
Funny seeing this site here again!

I made WordSafety five years ago as a two-night quickie side project:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297)

It is sadly neglected by me since then. Fortunately the code is extremely
simple so it just runs with zero maintenance.

Actually I'd love to hand this site over to someone who would take better care
of it than me. If that's you, drop me an email or Twitter DM (details in my HN
bio).

~~~
fahrradflucht
I was about to complain about the lack of https. But for a five year old side-
project you may be forgiven :wink:.

------
mprovost
Apparently "G8" when pronounced in Chinese sounds like slang for "penis". [0]
Canon had a popular line of cameras named G1/G2 etc - they skipped from G7 to
G9. [1] HP also had servers with model names and generations that were also
abbreviated as Gx, so HP ProLiant DL380p G7. They changed their naming
convention to Genx when the 8th generation came up, so Gen8 instead of G8.

(Fun side story - apparently HP names their servers this way for government
procurement contracts. So the contract can be written specifying a "HP DL380p
server" and HP can supply whatever the latest generation is. Even if it shares
nothing in common with the previous generation other than a name.)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity#Pen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity#Penis)
[1]
[https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2448027](https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2448027)
[2] [http://up2v.nl/2012/08/10/wonder-why-hp-did-use-
gen8-instead...](http://up2v.nl/2012/08/10/wonder-why-hp-did-use-gen8-instead-
of-g8-for-its-8th-generation-of-servers/)

~~~
DonHopkins
And also the iPhone 7's slogan "This is 7" means "This is penis" in Hong Kong.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7#Perception_of_slogan_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7#Perception_of_slogan_in_Cantonese-
speaking_regions)

>The iPhone 7's "This is 7" slogan has been misunderstood when translated to
certain other languages. The phone's slogan in Mainland China is "7, is here;"
(Chinese: 7，在此; pinyin: 7, zài cǐ), while in Hong Kong, its slogan is, "This,
is iPhone 7;" (Chinese: 這，就是iPhone 7; Jyutping: ze5, zau6 si6 iPhone 7).

>In Cantonese, the local language of Hong Kong, the slogan could be mistakenly
interpreted as "This is penis". "Tsat", (Chinese: 杘; Jyutping: cat6), is a
common slang term for an erect penis, and "seven", (Chinese: 七; Jyutping:
cat1), which varies only in tone, is often used as a euphemism.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Although I've been recommending WordSafety tool for quite a while now[1] for
'cultural-linguistic check' when naming a startup/product, we need to consider
other factors as well like current events.

Of course, it wouldn't be wise to name our product 'Corona' now(probably
ever?); Let me give you another epidemic related example -

"Tata Motors, an automobile company which owns Jaguar, Land Rover were about
to release their much anticipated car in 2016 called ‘Zica’ just when Zika
virus epidemic struck the world; Tata motors promptly rebranded their car to
Tiago before release." [2]

[1][https://startuptoolchain.com/#incorporation](https://startuptoolchain.com/#incorporation)

[2][https://hitstartup.com/how-to-name-our-
startup/](https://hitstartup.com/how-to-name-our-startup/)

~~~
EdwardDiego
Plenty of Toyota Isis' driving around my country.

~~~
liversage
There is a Danish company that specializes in sugar free products that was
named Isis. Initially they sold ice cream or in Danish 'is' hence the name.

After 23 years they changed their name to Easis quoting problems with building
new customer relations especially abroad.

Name change announcement (in Danish): [https://www.easis.dk/isis-er-lagt-paa-
hylden](https://www.easis.dk/isis-er-lagt-paa-hylden)

------
lebaux
I can swear in 4 languages and it was all missing. And there is no option to
submit a pull request.

This would work much beetter as open source project.

~~~
rubidium
Then make your own! And get off the lawn.

Sheesh.

------
G4E
One of my favorite example of this kind of oversight is the audi "e-tron" : in
french, an "étron" is literally a turd... (it seems that this website doesn't
catch it yet though)

~~~
aga98mtl
I tried the classic blunder "Buick Lacrosse" which sounds exactly like "Buick
the Scam" in Québécois. This tool does not understand Québécois.

~~~
DonHopkins
Buick's a pretty disgusting onomatopoeia in and of itself. As in "Ordering
Buicks over the big white porcelain telephone".

------
Godel_unicode
This site, as with so many that work on this problem, totally fails at
American slang (basically anything from twitch chat). This is what one of my
former jobs called the middle schooler test.

Find a colleague with a 12 year old, and give them a folder with the name in
big letters on the front to leave on the kitchen table. You'll find out the
next day if the name's safe.

------
DoreenMichele
This is probably most useful for people who speak English as a second language
trying to name something in English because it's de facto our current lingua
franca and gets called _globish_ for that reason.

I've given people on HN feedback a few times about how "that doesn't mean what
you think it means and sounds to me like a terrible name for this project and
here's why." A website checking for things like this is maybe a reasonable
first step for some people, but if you aren't somewhat fluent in the culture
and language of your primary target audience, a website like this is likely
insufficient. You should get some "live" feedback as well if you aren't sure,
preferably from someone like me who is prone to being _too truthful to be
good._ People with better "manners" may not tell you honestly "Ha! That sounds
like (offensive as all hell phrase) to me!"

------
amrx101
Good one. I will always remember the name of the then US first lady. Laura
Bush. Laura in my native language means Penis.

~~~
pyuser583
What language is that? It’s a really common English name.

~~~
vmh1928
let me Google that for you. . . . working . . . . . Punjabi

~~~
kranner
It's a common word in a bunch of related languages: Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi,
Bangla. It seems to be a tadbhava form of Sanskrit "lakuTa" meaning 'stick'.

~~~
sitkack
Make someone a nett hot Latte in German.

------
grawprog
How does this work with words or phrases that have two different meanings in
different languages, offensive in one but a common phrase or something in
another?

A friend of mine from the Philippines speaks Cebuano and Olango, two different
visaya dialects, they can mostly understand eachother, but there's phrases or
words in each dialect that translates to offensive things in the other
dialect, apparently this is a common source of confusion between speakers of
only one of the two languages with a speaker of the opposite dialect.

------
bjornstar
I put in my favorite poorly conceived product name: chocolate stool

It warned me that it contained the words 'ho' and 'chola'. Not really the
result I expected.

~~~
woko
As a non-native speaker, this website is useful to learn English slang.

------
Leherenn
A somewhat funny story happened at a company I used to work.

Due to legal concerns, a product had to be renamed and the sales and marketing
team spent weeks looking for a new name.

Those teams were basically entirely native English speakers in a non English
speaking country. Despite having lived there for a few years, none of them had
more than a basic proficiency in the local language.

Anyway, they sent a company wide email, proudly announcing the new name, and
asking if anyone saw any issue with it. It happened to be a pretty
embarrassing word in the local language, which everyone had on their mind, but
no one dared say anything, until the big mouth in the company just sent the
item in question as a picture to every one in the company.

A different name was promptly announced.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
I hope the company appropriately recognized the value of the big mouth,
instead of chastising him for his form while tolerating all the other people
who knew but chose to say nothing.

------
8organicbits
No results for git[1], although I suppose English may not be considered a
foreign language.

1\. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/git)

~~~
nilram
I entered the noun form of a common English obscenity and it caught it.

------
rogerdickey
Doesn't look like it covers 那个 (pronounced nah-gu in Mandarin). I had a black
friend in college who told me about how deeply offended he was when he heard
his Chinese girlfriend's parents saying this over & over...

~~~
aitchnyu
Is this a loan word from the west?

~~~
nayuki
No, it is a native Chinese word that predates European language influences.

那個 = that thing

那些 = those (plural)

那裡 = that place / over there

那天 = that day

那種 = that kind of

------
benatkin
One of my favorites: syntax (english) -> sintaxis (spanish) -> sin taxis
(english)

I think most of these are occasionally amusing but not problematic. I've been
living in Miami and I find that different words in different languages sharing
the same spelling are as irrelevant as word meanings changing by adding only
one letter. If I were to reply when someone said "Do you like my hat?" with
"Hmm, I dunno, if I add an e to that it will spell 'hate'", that would be
ridiculous and annoying. Similar with interpreting one language as another.

------
rexreed
Check these comments from the earlier post from 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297)

------
bencollier49
This is potentially dangerous, as it gives a false sense of security. It
appears to completely ignore slang. I just plugged in "slapper" and got a
green light, for instance. I notice they have a cautionary note on the site,
so...?

My favourite story about this sort of thing relates to a computer game which
was very popular in its home territory (the UK) but struggled when released
abroad (Germany, I think?) as its name was a slang term for "rent boy". IIRC
this was the game "Midwinter".

~~~
pacaro
Yeah it also doesn't think that knackered or felch are problematic either

~~~
saagarjha
What language are those slang in?

~~~
pacaro
British English

~~~
saagarjha
Today I learned a new word for something I was not aware was enough of a thing
that it needed a word for it…

------
namelosw
Nice service, it's would be pertty useful when it can identify this kind of
issues before it's too late.

One of the most used word in Mandarin is '那个' which means 'that' and 'Um...',
and it sounds like the N-word.

Another frequently used word is '会', which means both 'is able to' or 'is
going to', and it sounds like 'хуй' which means penis. I heard some Russian
chuckles when we say this word, though I found that funny too when I realized.

~~~
k_sze
"Nahuaer" seems like a nice brand of sausages.

~~~
namelosw
Theoretically it should start with 'Nah', but most people starts with 'Neh'
unless they're professional narrators.

------
axaxs
This is a cool idea, just needs a bit of tweaking.

For example, 'bubs' is flagged as a partial match of 'boob'. 'bewbs' finds no
such match and is deemed safe.

------
k_sze
Nice idea. But doesn't seem very robust.

I searched for "fallus" and it gave me a nonsensical answer instead of the
"phallus" that I expected.

------
Krasnol
It worked quite well on "Kurve" (German for "curve"). Made us chuckle as
youths coming from Poland.

However the problem often is that you don't know which word to look up in the
first place. The possibility to paste a whole text and have it look for
"problematic words" would be more useful.

------
mola
Wix.com has this problem in Germany, I think they handled it rather
gracefully: [https://youtu.be/IddnMutPgTI](https://youtu.be/IddnMutPgTI)

IMHO A society that can handle sensitivities with good hearted humor is more
robust and inclusive than other alternatives.

------
gnachman
I was recently involved in an unwanted meaning issue where my app icon looked
like "SB", which I learned is offensive to some Chinese speakers. Too bad it
doesn't come up in wordsafety.com. Not that I'd have thought to look…

------
legerdemain
OK, let's try this:

 _mokkori_ -> safe!

Uh... hmm... _mukkuri_ -> danger!

Matched "kur," which according to the site is "Russian: penis (Bulgarian)."
Not sure if the site is claiming that it's the Russian word for Bulgarian
penis or what.

------
tveyben
How about Numbers? Did’nt Apple have a low sales rate of the Performa 4400 in
Japan due to 4 having a bad meaning?

 _Four is an unlucky number in Japan because it sounds like shi (死 – death).
This is why there are two readings for the number four, shi and yon. Whenever
possible, people try to avoid using the deathy one._

[https://www.lingualift.com/blog/lucky-unlucky-numbers-
japan/](https://www.lingualift.com/blog/lucky-unlucky-numbers-japan/)

~~~
DoingIsLearning
We can also add in alphanumeric sequences.

An example of this was Toyota launching the 'MR2' in France, which
phonetically spells out something not very marketable.

------
pajtai
Not as good as Google... At least as regards Hungarian (e.g. fasz). Google is
generally okay for this, so not sure I understand the selling point.

------
l4hel
Did a few attempts using slang of European languages. Lacks words that are
widely understood by the general population and have bad meanings.

------
lucb1e
Note that HTML is not escaped correctly. I don't think this can lead to XSS
because <> is removed and the word is not echoed inside any tag attribute, but
escaping &, ', and " might be something to fix regardless.

Obligatory snowman: [https://dro.pm/a.png](https://dro.pm/a.png)

------
rogerdickey
Who else immediately plugged in "nova"?

~~~
haneefmubarak
What's the context I'm missing here?

~~~
pwinnski
There's a popular legend about Chevy's Nova selling poorly in Spanish-speaking
countries, since "va" means "go," so "nova" is literally "no-go."

~~~
boring_twenties
Not a native Spanish speaker, so I'm prepared to be wrong here, but I would
translate "no va" as "doesn't go." Which is even worse

------
IfOnlyYouKnew
The best names, of course, do tend to evoke complex emotions. 'Virgin', and
'Plan B' are the classic example in the branding industry.

CockroachDB is my favorite in tech, and also my favorite example of how tech
people and their faux rationality are useless for tasks involving creativity
and imagination.

------
buzzy_hacker
I put in “Nova” first since that’s the best instance of this problem I know,
only to learn that it’s an urban legend!

------
Igelau
This reminds me of an incident from my teen years. I was at a party that had a
bunch of German exchange students, and at one point we found them laughing
around a bottle of Sierra Mist (Pepsi's Sprite-alike). Turns out "mist"
doesn't sound very refreshing in German :)

------
dzink
Great idea! However the list is not yet complete, so not to be trusted
completely. The words “Gus/Guz” and “Zadnik” have negative meanings in
Bulgarian, but don’t seem to show. If you enable crowdsourced additions to the
dictionary, you may complete the list fairly quickly.

------
AmericanChopper
I’m not sure what it’s referring to when it says ‘Malay’ (that could mean a
few different things) but it’s definitely missing some Malay words.

Edit: I think it’s referring to Malaysian/Malayu but it doesn’t pick up a lot
of the Malaysian cuss words that I tested on it (like the F word...)

------
jonplackett
Great idea. I’ve heard 2 funny examples of this from Spanish friends.

Apparently ford released a car in Spain a while back that sounded like
‘wanker’ in Spanish. Something like Panjero - maybe someone else can remember
precisely.

And also Nescafe sounds a lot like No es Cafe (not coffee)

~~~
probably_wrong
The car is the Mitsubishi Pajero, renamed to "Montero" in Spanish-speaking
countries.

~~~
jonplackett
Thanks for the corrections!

------
newman8r
Darn, my current project starts with "ass" in bengali and "butt" in German

oh well

------
Hard_Space
Failed to identify the Italian word 'scopa' \- which means 'broom', but also
something very NSFW.

It did recognize 'Sega' as an Italian term for a bout of self-abuse. However,
that ship sailed a long time ago.

------
cookie_monsta
I really feel like Mitsubishi should have checked here before releasing the
Pajero

------
peacefulhat
Gives a lot of false positives for words that don't match at all.

"aka" -> cha no.

~~~
lucb1e
I have yet to find a word that gives a long list of false-positives, though.
If you get any false-positives, it's usually not more than 2 or maybe 3. If
you have a couple potential brand/product names in mind, looking through those
hits and using your own judgement isn't a big deal.

I'd rather it remains like this, false-positive, than having it false-negative
on something bad.

------
camillomiller
>“Arshole”

1 Result:

>“ho”, English: prostitute.

>Match inside word, may not be a problem.

Cool, I’ll go with that for my next website.

~~~
Dahoon
You are missing an E in arse..

~~~
hawk_
yes but to be fair such a lookup should be fuzzy, i mean arshole isn't exactly
a great brand name in any English speaking location.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I typed in a former internal codename from my employer that I know was
replaced because of an obvious unfortunate meaning in Chinese, and WordSafety
said nothing.

------
mfontani
Doesn't seem to pick up on "Cognos" being similar to "coño", but it did pick
up on the famous example of the "Ascona" car.

------
sercankd
I think this tool only working for popular languages like european and some
asian languages. None of the middle eastern languages are checked at all.

~~~
anonu
"kiss" is there for Arabic.... What other words can you think of

------
Closi
Phew, I can be safe knowing that my lifestyle brand “smelly toilet mess Isis
untrustworthy company” does not have any negative meaning in English.

------
anonu
Don't do the French cheers "chin chin" in Japan... You'll get some laughs.

The site gets it right. Also kiss in Arabic is quite bad

------
huffmsa
Sadly no Easter egg for "bitenuker" (bêteneuker)

Caused GE to lose the European market for their pocket microwave back in 2009.

------
QuiXotical1
I think it’s crowd sourced answers with our help. Looked up a common one and
it wasn’t there. Added it to help, of course

------
hellofunk
Looks to be missing quite a lot of offensive content from the searches I
tried, things that bit me in the past.

------
gsich
Mongodb comes to mind. "mongo" is a slur in german for handicapped (mostly
down syndrome) people.

------
f4rt_blossm
Doesn't work for Thai at all. I tried the top 10 offensive words and their
most common Romanizations.

------
lloydatkinson
I just typed Sex and it said it’s fine... I don’t think the site is very good

~~~
DarthGhandi
In which culture is sex a bad thing?

~~~
lloydatkinson
I didn’t say it was? But I’m pretty sure it makes the site useless

------
2038AD
Interesting "china" is flagged but "pen island" is not

------
dcanelhas
"Knull is coming"

------
Daub
'sweat' remains a popular drinks brand despite such concerns.

~~~
aitchnyu
We used to have Appy which means shit in Kerala, India. Somehow a TV campaign
made us say App-ee instead of the bad upp-e and its popular since then.

------
est
Didn't work when adding a space between syllables.

------
dgb23
Peace among worlds!

------
rahulchowdhury
It supports Hindi words as well. Great stuff.

~~~
hydros
Does it? I tried “goo” meaning shit and it didn’t return anything.

------
homarp
too nad it doesn't do phonetics. it could catch

hank ewlay

shu pameyla

and funnily Felicity Shagwell is only flagged for 'lik'

------
100111010110
Great service. Interesting finds.

hacker

“kher” Russian: dick

------
DonHopkins
Always check for unwanted anagrams, too.

Hacker News = Wankers Ech, Whack Sneer, Cranks Whee, Shaken Crew, Neck Washer,
Wench Rakes, Eschew Rank, Hawk Screen, Swank Cheer, Her New Sack, He Necks
War, Answer Heck, Warns Cheek, Ashen Wreck ...

[https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=hacker...](https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=hacker+news&language=english-
obscure&t=0&d=&include=&exclude=&n=&m=&a=n&l=n&q=n&k=1&source=adv)

