The meaning behind major car nameplates

The story behind many car brand names are well known - but what about the tale behind the models they make?

• Picking a name for a car is a career on its own.
• Alfa Romeo MiTo
• Audi TT
• Bentley Bentayga
• Chevrolet Camaro
• Chrysler PT Cruiser
• Citroën 2CV
• Citroën DS
• Dodge Challenger/Charger/Durango SRT
• Ferrari GTC4Lusso
• Lamborghini’s fighting bulls
• Mazda MX-5 Miata
• Mercedes-Benz E-Class
• Mercedes-Benz G-Class
• Nissan Qashqai
• Peugeot’s three-digit nameplates
• Renault Twingo
• Tesla’s hidden crossword
• Toyota Corolla
• Toyota RAV4
• Toyota Yaris
• Volkswagen’s wind-inspired names

Picking a name for a car is a career on its own.

There are entire departments within each automaker tasked with choosing the right name for the right model. Getting it wrong can turn an otherwise competitive car into a costly flop. The nameplate also plays a significant role in forging a car’s image. The next-generation Volkswagen Golf may not sell as well as its predecessor if the marketing department in Wolfsburg gives it a name that sounds like a vulgar insult in English. Similarly, we’d have a difficult time imagining BMW releasing a model called Charlotte to replace the 4 Series. And yet, heritage aside, Giulia undoubtedly fits Alfa Romeo’s 3 Series-fighter much better than G20t4D would. Join us as we explore the meaning (or, in some cases, the lack of meaning) behind some of the industry’s enigmatic nameplates.

Alfa Romeo MiTo

Alfa Romeo chose the name MiTo for two reasons. First, it signals that the hatchback was developed in Milan and assembled in Turin, a city Italians call Torino. Second, the word mito means myth in Italian. Clearly, Alfa Romeo had high hopes for its Mini-fighting entry-level model.

Audi TT

Audi named the TT after the Tourist Trophy held annually on the Isle of Man. The German firm has never mass-produced a motorcycle, let alone raced one in the TT, but the event is nonetheless part of its (complicated) heritage.

DKW, one of the companies that merged to form Audi, made racing motorcycles during the 1930s. One of its bikes won the TT in 1938. NSU motorcycles captured the first four spots in the 250cc category during the 1954 TT. The initials appeared on a moped in 1960 and on a sportier evolution of the Prinz in 1965. The Prinz TT and TTS enjoyed a long and successful racing career which Audi paid tribute to when it introduced the TT concept at the 1995 Frankfurt auto show – and Audi owns the right to use the TT name as a result of its ancestor models.

Bentley Bentayga

Bentley named its first SUV after a peak in the Canary Islands. Roque Bentayga overlooks the village of Tejeda on the island of Gran Canaria. The British firm offered little indication as to why it chose this particular rock formation but it’s likely because the name Bentley Bentayga has a nice ring to it. Everest was already taken by Ford and Bentley Kanchenjunga wouldn’t have quite the same effect.

Today, the Bentayga faces competition from the Cullinan, a Rolls-Royce SUV named after a giant diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.

Chevrolet Camaro

When Chevrolet released the Camaro in 1967, most of its cars wore a name that started with the letter C. The branding team in charge of finding a name for project Panther allegedly made a list of 2000 words that start with a C, including a few that they made up. Camaro was one of them.

Though it has a Spanish ring to it, the name Camaro doesn’t mean anything in any language. Chevrolet famously told journalists who attended the car’s launch that a Camaro is a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs.

Chrysler PT Cruiser

Historians disagree on the meaning of the PT Cruiser’s name and Chrysler has never shed light on the matter. Some argue PT stands for personal transport while others believe it represents Plymouth truck. Both are credible; the PT Cruiser was inarguably a form of personal transportation and it was set to join the Plymouth line-up until Chrysler axed the brand. Regardless of what it means, PT was also the internal designation of the platform the model was built on.

Citroën 2CV

Citroën envisioned the 2CV as a basic, no-frills car so paying creative minds to come up with a catchy name was plainly out of the question. The model was dubbed 2CV because its 375cc flat-twin engine was rated at two taxable horsepower (chevaux-vapeurs) under the French system. Later cars with the bigger 602cc engine moved up to three taxable horsepower but they were never officially called 3CV.

Citroën DS

At first glance, the Citroën DS wears two randomly-selected letters as its name. They’re not initials but they’re not completely meaningless, either. In French, the letters DS are pronounced like the word déesse, which literally translate to goddess. It’s a fitting name for a model presented as the goddess of the road. The stripped-down, entry-level model was called ID because the letters sound like idée, the French word for idea.

The CX launched in 1974 to replace the DS was named after the term for drag coefficient. Its own drag coefficient was 0.36, a respectable figure during the 1970s. It’s better than the numbers posted by the BMW Z3 M Coupe (0.37) and original Mazda MX-5 (0.38).

Dodge Challenger/Charger/Durango SRT

Dodge uses the SRT suffix to denote its most powerful cars. It’s on the Hellcat V8-powered variants of the Charger and the Challenger (pictured) and on the hot-rodded Durango, a family-friendly SUV capable of a 12.9-second quarter-mile. SRT – which got promoted to a standalone brand for the 2013 and 2014 model years – stands for street and racing technology.

While the Hellcat emblem depicts what looks like a cat sent from hell, Dodge borrowed the name from a fighter plane the US Navy used during World War II.

Ferrari GTC4Lusso

Deciphering the Ferrari GTC4Lusso’s name requires breaking it down into three pieces. GTC is a tribute to classic Ferrari models, including the 330 GTC presented at the 1966 Geneva motor show. The number four signals its status as a four-seater while lusso means luxury in Italian. If you see a T at the end, it’s an indication that power comes from the smaller, twin-turbocharged V8 engine rather than the mighty V12.

Fiat 500

The Fiat 500 sold today is named after the rear-engined model introduced in 1957. It was a cheap, tiny car designed primarily for motorists looking to upgrade from a moped or a scooter. The original model used a 479cc two-cylinder engine rated at 13hp. Fiat rounded the displacement up to arrive at 500, hence the name. It was a common practice at the time; the bigger 600 came with a 633cc four-cylinder.

Later examples of the 500 received a 594cc two-cylinder engine from the 126 but they retained the 500 designation. The R suffix identified them as the model’s ultimate evolution.

Lamborghini’s fighting bulls

Lamborghini has a long history of naming its cars after fighting bulls. Aventador was a bull which earned an award for its outstanding courage in 1993. And, while Huracan sounds like the Spanish word for a hurricane, it’s also the name of a fighting bull. This one fought in 1879. The Urus never fought in a ring; it was an impressively large species of bull that became extinct in the 17th century.

Ford likes bulls, too. Taurus, the second sign of the zodiac, is represented by a bull.

Mazda MX-5 Miata

MX-5 is the international designation for Mazda’s popular roadster. It’s an acronym that stands for Mazda Experimental project number five. Miata – the name given to the convertible on the North American market – is derived from an old German word that means “reward.”

Whether the Miata rewards buyers by delivering an engaging driving experience or whether it’s a reward for motorists who worked hard for it is open to interpretation.

Mercedes-Benz E-Class

Several Mercedes-Benz models received the suffix E before the firm officially introduced the E-Class. Always preceded by the engine displacement, it indicated the presence of a fuel injection system (einspritzung in German). The 280E came with a fuel-injected 2.8-liter engine, for example.

The W124 became the first E-Class in 1994 when Mercedes sensibly reorganised its naming system around a car’s shape rather than its engine size. The entire line-up had received fuel injection by that point but the letter E was chosen because it conveniently suggested the model slotted between the entry-level C-Class and the range-topping S-Class as a mid-range offering.

Mercedes-Benz G-Class

In 1979, Mercedes-Benz called the G-Class Geländewagen, a German term which literally translates to “cross country vehicle.” This is where the often-used nickname G-Wagen comes from. The Geländewagen became the G-Class when Mercedes revamped its entire naming system in 1994, as already mentioned.

Nissan Qashqai

The Qashqai is a hot-selling SUV made by Nissan. Open an anthropology book and you’ll read the Qashqai are a migratory, Turkic-speaking people who live in the Zagros mountain in Iran. How the name ended up on the hatch of an SUV is anyone’s guess but the answer is likely something along the lines of “it sounded cool.”

In America, where buyers tend to dislike names that are difficult to pronounce, Nissan chose to ditch the Qashqai name and called the model Rogue Sport (pictured).

Peugeot’s three-digit nameplates

Peugeot began using three-digit nameplates with a zero in the middle when it introduced the 201 in 1929. The model was quickly joined in showrooms by three additional new cars named 301, 401 and 601, respectively. On some of them, the emblem was placed on the grille and the zero doubled as the hole for the crank. It was a clever solution that designers were proud of so Peugeot continued using it.

The three-digit naming system outlived the crank. The numbers stopped evolving in 2012; the 208 (pictured) was replaced by another 208, not by a 209.  Peugeot has occasionally made an exception to its rule for models like the P4, the 1007 and the RCZ. In 2018, the firm uses two zeros to denote SUVs like the 3008.

Porsche 911

Flashbulbs popped as Porsche introduced the brand-new 901 at the 1963 Frankfurt auto show. Sleek and powerful, the 356’s long-awaited successor made headlines all around the world but it caught the attention of Peugeot for a completely different reason. The French firm swiftly reminded Porsche that it owned the rights to every three-digit car nameplate with a zero in the middle. And, though it didn’t plan on releasing a model named 901 and it certainly had no intention of building a rear-engined sports car, it wasn’t about to let Porsche get away with trademark infringement.

Porsche replaced the zero with a one to create the 911. It made about 82 901-badged pre-production cars before changing the car’s name. It’s fair to say the 911 hasn’t looked back.

Renault Twingo

Renault began moving away from numerical nameplates when it introduced the Clio in 1990. The revamped naming system marked the beginning of a new era for the firm. Its marketing department came up with the name Twingo for the entry-level model presented in 1993. The name is a combination of three dance styles: twist, swing and tango.

Tesla’s hidden crossword

Tesla’s first car was quite simply called Roadster. The California-based company then launched a new naming system when it introduced the Model S (pictured). It later released the Model X, the Model 3 and Model Y. SX3Y, then.

Tesla originally wanted to name its entry-level car Model E but Ford threatened to sue because it owned the rights to that name. Replace 3 with E and re-arrange the letters in Tesla’s line-up to discover what the company’s naming system leads to.

Toyota Corolla

You won’t find a picture of a humble economy car if you look up the word corolla in the dictionary. Instead, it’s a noun defined as “the petals of a flower, typically forming a whorl within the sepals.” It’s a term commonly used by botanists.

Toyota RAV4

Toyota designed the original RAV4 before the term SUV became widely known so it had to come up with its own name. RAV4 means recreational active vehicle with four-wheel drive, though the model comes standard with front-wheel drive in most markets.

Toyota Yaris

Toyota blended German and Greek to invent the word Yaris. The Japanese firm explains Charis was a symbol of beauty and elegance in Greek mythology. Toyota’s marketing department could have stopped there but it replaced the first syllable with ya, the word for yes in German. Officially, it represents the reaction that designers hoped European buyers would have to the first-generation Yaris’ styling.

Volkswagen’s wind-inspired names

Volkswagen’s early models stood out as some of the most uncreatively-named cars in the industry. The Beetle’s official name was Type 1, for example. Executives decided to celebrate the era of front-wheel drive, water-cooled models by injecting a little more pizzazz into the line-up. They turned to meteorology for inspiration.

The Golf (pictured) is named after the gulf stream, which is called golfstrom in German. Passat is the German term for trade winds, the jet stream became Jetta and the Scirocco is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara desert. In an odd twist of fate, the Scirocco shares its name with a Maserati. Ghibli is another term for the Scirocco wind. Final thing: why was the Golf known as Rabbit in the US for multiple periods? Basically, it seems VW wanted to give the car a youthful image in America that didn’t chime with the ‘Golf club’ image of the game.

Keyword: The meaning behind major car nameplates