Toyota and Hyundai

Toyota

Good luck—and an easier to pronounce name—played a role in the creation of the Toyota nameplate in 1936. In the book Toyota: A History of the First 50 Years, company founder Kiichiro Toyoda “ran a contest for suggestions for a new Toyoda logo. There were over 20,000 entries. The winning entry consisted of katakana characters in a design that imparted a sense of speed… “Toyoda” became “Toyota” because as a design it was esthetically superior and because the number of strokes needed to write it was eight, which in Japan is a felicitous number, suggestive of increasing prosperity.”

 Hyundai

The Hyundai name has an even simpler explanation. In Korean it means “modern,” while the company’s logo is a stylized “H” that also represents two people, the company and customer, shaking hands.