So here we go, our rebranding is done. New logo, new domain, what could go wrong.<p>We provide a tool to convert design files between Figma, XD, Sketch, Figma, PDF and more and have recently rebranded it from "XD2Sketch" to "Magicul". We started out as a simple tool to allow users to import XD files in Sketch hence the name XD2Sketch but soon added more features. The name just didn't make sense anymore. Magicul initially seemed to be a great name, but turned out to be a bit of an interesting pick when translated to French.<p>We've sent out a newsletter to our customers to let them know about the changes and here's what one of our users replied:<p><i>Hey folks,<p>While I understand that you guys probably hope to operate primarily in English, I think it needs to be mentioned that your brand name "Magicul" in french, literally means "Magical ass"... but the real kicker is the .io of the domain, which literally means input & output...<p>So here goes the bad news... The entire french community is reading your brand name - literally - as: Magical ass (dot) in & out.<p>And then there's the logo itself... which is a hole with a hat.<p>Christ. You can't make this stuff up. This is ugh, umm, a brutally unfortunate brand?...lol<p>I'm in Quebec, Canada, where french is dominant and so I'm keenly aware of this - and so are my partners, colleagues and friends. We all had a good laugh.<p>Don't know what else to say...?<p>Bonne chance mes amis!<p>Have a good one,<p>- A fan of your work in Montreal.</i><p>You can checkout our website here: https://magicul.io<p>I just thought this was too hilarious to not share.
The French are probably the best people to do this to, they have a sense of humor about this sort of thing. I'd add a note in French in your FAQ and leave it as is. It may even net you customers.
My colleague and I are laughing so much right now, thank you very much. I'm in tears. "Tant que ça fait pas de la merde" he just replied, meaning "as long as it's not outputting shit". This is amazing.
> We've sent out a newsletter to our customers to let them know about the changes and here's what one of our users replied<p>Thank you, I can't help but laugh at the idea that they received what looked like a out-of-season april fool's :D<p>Most important question are you keeping the brand ? As the French person, I can assure you that everyone will read "magic ass" before anything else.
So what? Italian automobile giant Fiat recently turned "FCA", which is the Italian equivalent of "PSSY"<p>It's fine, people joke and then move onto the next TikTok video.
When the Australian government decided to cancel the order of a dozen of French submarines, they announced that they had made a new special alliance with the US and the UK. The name of the alliance is "AUKUS" (Australia-UK-US).<p>But "au cul" in French of course means "(fuck) in the ass". "Vous l'avez dans le cul" means "you've been fucked in the ass".<p>As the cancelling of the order was received by France as a giant betrayal from Australia, it's believed the name of the alliance was an intentional insult from people who knew what they were doing.<p>I don't know if that's true but I tend to believe it is.
Oh man, that's a classic, always check what your name idea means in different languages ^^ it's actually close to "ass" in Spanish too (culo).<p>Do you plan to keep the new name? Personally I don't think is so bad.
Oh don't worry about that. As a Frenchman, I will definitely be delighted if I get my boss to pay for a Cul Magique.<p>If the product is good, it will not matter.<p>Better, we will make jokes about it and say stuff in the scrum meeting like: "today I will work on magically fucking myself. Someones has to do it."<p>Plus you get plausible deniability :)
Honestly I think you should keep the new brand/name. It's memorable and elicits a laugh, even if unfortunate. That's a bigger marketing win than you think
Reminds me of the Mitsubishi Pajero which translates to "wanker" in Spanish. Or a long time ago we named projects after mountains in the alps. Once we got to "Wank" luckily our born in England intern told us that maybe this wasn't a good idea.
Now imagine being a Brazilian living in South Korea where on of the major chains of convenience stores is called "CU", which means "asshole" in Portuguese.
This is indeed hilarious. Even for an Italian ear it kinda sounds like that.<p>I hope that in Spanish or Portuguese it doesn't evoke that kind of feeling too, but I am afraid it probably does.<p>You probably made your product very hilarious (and probably hard to sell) for the entirety of the Romance-speaking market...
Magical ass or not, you offer no trial and $94/file -1 file with up to 50 artboards. $124/file - 1 file with unlimited artboards. Hard no from me and my team.
Your site is quite nice and responsive, made me think of Stripe's interface. May I ask what frontend you've built this on? Or really any details of your process of frontend rebuild you'd like to share?<p>The French-speaking populace can take jokes like this, so you're safe. :)
I worked as an intern at a Montreal company that had products with initials ES and EJ There were test programs for them named 'testej' and 'testes'. Being more of an English speaker I suggested they might not want to use that naming pattern.
Kind of like that story about the car, the Chevy Nova. Apparently "No Va" means no go in Spanish, which obviously did not bode well for sales in those language markets....<p>*Edit, there was also the "Lee Kee Boat Company" based out of Hong Kong.
Related: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297</a><p>Running "Magicul" through it does indeed give a warning for the french meaning.
It's fine. Everybody made jokes that Apple named a product the i-sanitary-napkin for about a week and then got over it. They're still selling iPads after all these years and seem to be doing quite well at it.
It’s a real testament to how far French as fallen as the default language of international business and commerce that it didn’t occur to anybody to check on this.
Legally you can't call a company Magical Ass otherwise it would be common like novelty plates<p>But a company CREATING Magical Ass, this would obviously be one doing perfect CGI humans.<p>Michelangelo-level perfection and pathos at 60fps+ = direct hijack into the divine experience centers of your brain<p>Big Thiel truth here, yeah I'm already working on it<p><a href="https://medium.com/@auren/why-the-famous-peter-thiel-interview-question-is-so-predictive-46ede01392c8" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@auren/why-the-famous-peter-thiel-intervi...</a>
>> .io of the domain, which literally means input & output...<p>Umm, actually, .io is literally the TLD for the British Indian Ocean territory (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io</a>).<p>(Still a perfectly funny rebranding!)
I'm gonna be quite pedantic, nitpicking and killjoy-y here, so don't read on if you'll be annoyed by that<p>>"The entire french community"<p>seems like a huge exaggeration. input/output is i/o, not io. while that's a relatively small difference, it's enough that without context I'd never read io as input output. also I'd question how much of the French [presumably design?] community at large has even heard of or seen i/o as a symbol for input/output