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Is there a (British Engligh) word to describe a company that uses a foreign word as it's name for marketing purposes? For example, Tableau is an American data visualisation company and tableau is French for picture. Or Wagamama is a British restaurant that sells Japanese food and wagamama is Japanese for self-indulgence.

this has caused much debate in the office.

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    As far as I know, there isn't, and I can't see why there should be. Pret a Manger is a very well-known example, but it's just a business with a funny-sounding name (unless you know some French).
    – Mick
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 15:58
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    Given that exotic is (primarily) defined as Originating in or characteristic of a distant foreign country, I think you could reasonably use exotically-named. But it's also commonly used with the sense of Attractive or striking because colourful or out of the ordinary, so not everyone would understand the "foreign" implication there. I can't find any instances on Google, but the nonce word exotonymic would certainly work for me to very specifically convey named by using a foreign (or unusual) "word".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 16:03
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    ...Exoticism is the quality of seeming unusual or interesting, usually because of associations with a distant country.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 16:07
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    Pretentious is the one I use. Like for Pret-à-manquer ...
    – Will Crawford
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 20:47
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    I don't know, but I have a word for when I get charged import beer prices for a Yuengling.
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 20:47

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I can't find a single word, but Wikipedia defines the marketing strategy of foreign branding as assigning:

foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, products, and services

with the aim of

trying to make customers believe that the company and/or its products originate from a more favourable country than they actually do

Perhaps you could refer to the habit as faux-foreign branding?

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  • Good find, StuartLC!
    – Davo
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 16:10

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