Beatles drummer Richard Starkey's stage name, Ringo Starr, transliterates to "applesauce" in Japanese. When he found out, Starr capitalized on the coincidence by appearing in a 1996 Japanese commercial for applesauce.
More on interesting translations:
- In China, Coca-Cola is known as "Ke Kou Ke Le," which roughly translates to "happiness in your mouth." However, the Coke marketing team had to look through more than 200 combinations of characters to find an appropriate transliteration. Rejected character combinations that sounded like "Ke Kou Ke Le" translated into "bite the wax tadpole" and "wax flattened horse."
- Gerber Baby Food goes by different names in French-speaking countries, because the word "Gerber" can be translated as "vomiting."
- KFC also had some trouble with translating its slogan into Chinese. The descriptive "finger-licking good" translated into "so good you'll eat your fingers off."