Most of them are due to ‘Lost in Translation’ syndrome. Others didn’t predict how it would sound out loud, or did not keep pace with development of the language. Generally speaking anything with Dick in it doesn’t seem to go down well….
Larger companies now have checks in place to ensure that brand names do not cause offence in other languages but gems such as these slip through all the time…
My favourite is:
In August 2007, the German electronics manufacturer TrekStor tried to capitalize on the Apple iPod phenomenon with their own MP3 player. But what to name it? They knew they had to get the “i” in front of whatever word they decided on, to bring the iPod to mind. How about “beat” to signify all of the phat beats the customers will play on it? And it’s black. Thus,
i.Beat.blaxx.
I kid you not…..
I forgot to comment on the ‘Wack Off’ mossie repellant (I haven’t seen it for sale here, but it must be Australian as they mention Ross River Fever). Wack is hit here. I think you are thinking of something that we would call ‘Wank’.
Wack off has the same meaning 🙂
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whack+off
Two of the products are Australian. Golden Circle Sars is sarsaparilla soft drink (root beer soda). I don’t know what Sars can be confused with, but Root is an euphemism for sex here. And let’s not get started on Fanny!
The Streets Golden Gaytimes are great ice creams. They were on the market decades before the term Gay was appropriated for the Gay Pride Movement, rendering a perfectly lovely, innocuous word awash with layers of meaning that my mother and grandmother could never really comprehend.
SARS is a pretty bad disease which reached epidemic proportions a few years back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome
Ah!