If foreigners in Beijing are planning to taste the famous Peking roast duck, they may be advised to go to Quanjude, a household food brand name that has more than one hundred years history. If however they want to recommend the restaurant to friends, chances of remembering a Chinese name are slim. Chinese restaurants seldom have foreign names, often the only concession being a pinyin form of their Chinese names, which are still difficult for foreigners to pronounce and remember.

But it is Olympic year and things are changing fast. Six of the time-honored business brands in Beijing, including Quanjude, will now have additional English explanations to their brand names, as Beijing Youth Daily reported.

It is the result of a large-scale public welfare program, to make it easier for foreigners to understand the meaning of time-honored brands in Beijing.

"The aim of the program is to help time-honored brands overcome the language barrier in exploring the overseas market," said Ma Xiaoli, public relations manager of Transn Information Technology Co. Ltd., a translation service provider in China and the organizer of the program, which forms part of the Beijing Government's move to improve the translation level of public signs in the city before the Olympics.

Ma said the English name enhancements for the first batch of six time-honored businesses represent the opinions of the majority of their judging panel, which include both experts on Chinese folklore, linguists, senior translators from China and other countries, and representatives of the businesses involved. More than 30,000 name suggestions for one brand were received by the public for consideration.

The new name versions include the pinyin names of the business, the line of business they are in and the year that they were founded, said Wang Lidi, a professor with the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and a member of the judging panel.

"We hope to help foreigners better understand the character of the products and the long history of these businesses," said Professor Wang.

He also hopes that the new naming process will provide a standardized form for other time-honored brands to choose their foreign names in the future.

The Transn company said they have received more than 250,000 name suggestions from the public since the program was launched in August 2007.

Beside English, the program is also welcoming French, Russian, Spanish, German, Japan and Korean translations and name enhancements. Domestic businesses participating in the program can get quality foreign translations for free.

Ma Xiaoli said now that the first phase of the program is complete, she expects that the second phase, which began in Januray this year, will see more century-old businesses in Beijing that need foreign names will participate in the initiative.

But whether this uniform translation system will work still needs to be tested. The current situation is that the result of the program has caused a stir on the net. Supporters say that an appropriate foreign name will help well-known domestic brands get over the language and culture barrier on their way to internationalization, while opponents say that the competitive advantage of these brands in the market is their brand value with strong Chinese cultural characteristics.

Chen Dezhang, another BFSU professor, said he has doubts about this kind of naming process. "It seems to be convenient to translate these brand names with a standardized format, but it is a pity that the deep cultural connotation will not be conveyed," he said.

Chen took Quanjude for example, saying that in Chinese, quan, ju, and de are three characters that have positive meanings, with connotation of happiness and festival. But this implied meaning will be lost if just translated in pinyin form.

Besides, he said that every time-honored brand name has a story behind it, and in China, the name of an enterprise or just a shop is very important as the name of a person. It's a big thing to name an enterprise in traditional Chinese belief as many things are taken into account, for example, whether a name will make the business prosperous and sounds lucky.

To Professor Chen, the role of a business's name is to arouse the interest of others. But simple pinyin forms of Chinese brand names are meaningless to foreigners who do not know much about Chinese language and its culture. So, translation of a business name needs a lot of thought, he said.

Transn's Ma told Beijing Review that all these six name enhancements have now been publicized and while they may not be perfect, they merely reflect the opinions of the language experts invited to make the final selections.

"Our company has no intention of enforcing those businesses to use these new names, and whether they do or not is entirely up to them," she said.

While Ma said the six businesses involved had confirmed they were aware of these English assisted names, the businesses themselves said they were not sure when these names would come into use.

And, at the same time, while Beijingers are still busy discussing whether the standardized translation will be effective, a different method of brand name translation in a neighboring city has added a new dimension to the debate.

Recently, Gou Buli, a 150-year-old steamed dumpling restaurant in Tianjin, a coastal city east of Beijing, announced their new English name, "Go Believe."

This translation totally abandons the pinyin style, and uses two English words that sound similar with the Chinese pronunciation of its Chinese brand name. It is reported that the Gou Buli Group, to which the restaurant is affiliated, registered "Go Believe" as its English trademark on January 11.

"The meaning of ‘Go Believe' is similar to our operation idea, which is the pursuit of sincere attitude and authentic products," said Li Yongshan, Deputy General Manager of the Group.

But there are still a large number of netizens thinking that the translation is not as perfect as the leaders of the restaurant think, as Gou Buli, the Chinese name of the restaurant came from an interesting story related with the founder of the restaurant.

It is said that the founder, named Gao Guiyou, got his nickname "Gou Buli" (which means a dog ignoring things happening around it) when he first set up the shop and was always so busy making and selling savory stuffed buns that he had no time to answer or talk to his customers. But why is a dog involved in the name? Apparently Gao's family gave him the pet name Gouzi, which means a dog, a popular pet name in rural China, especially in the past.

However, the story behind the restaurant name will disappear in the new translation, which will no doubt lose the historical and cultural feeling of this brand.

"If our time-honored brands want to attract foreign customers or expand to overseas markets, they must get others interested in them first and then it slowly introduce their cultural background," said Chen of BFSU.

But there are still some people who like the new English translation of Gou Buli. Ma Weihua, a teacher of Tianjin-based Nankai University, is one of them. He said that translation of these well-known brands is also a way of cultural dialogue and "Go Believe" is a good example.

"Translation of time-honored brands should also have a new way of thinking. If a foreign name will be helpful to let more foreigners know the brand and know Chinese food culture, then it is worth trying," he said.

English Names of the Six Time-Honored Brands in Beijing:

Quanjude Peking Roast Duck-Since 1864

Wuyutai Tea Shop-Since 1887

Tongrentang Chinese Medicine-Since 1669

Ruifuxiang Silk-Since 1862

Rongbaozhai Art Gallery- Since 1672

Wangzhihe Gourmet Food-Since 1669