By Hagerty / Originally Published September 28, 2015 / Hagerty / What’s in a name? In the case of the examples below, not much more than a…{"id":7981,"date":"2015-11-12T11:01:12","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T19:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/?p=7981"},"modified":"2015-11-12T11:02:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T19:02:08","slug":"nonsense-names-five-car-names-that-arent-actually-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/nonsense-names-five-car-names-that-arent-actually-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Nonsense Names: Five car names that aren’t actually words"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Hagerty\u00a0\/ Originally Published September 28, 2015\u00a0\/ Hagerty \/<\/h5>\n

What\u2019s in a name? In the case of the examples below, not much more than a lot of marketing and a trademark registration. Yep, the names of the cars on this list were made up by someone clever, every one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Toyota Camry<\/strong>: The company that came up with names like Carina, Previa and Yaris not surprisingly gets the top two on this list. \u201cCamry\u201d is an agreeable-sounding word that Toyota initially copped to being totally made up. Upon the runaway success of the car, they later sheepishly invented the story that it sounds kind of like an anglicized version of \u201ckenmuri,\u201d the Japanese word for \u201ccrown.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\n

    \"1988

    1988 Toyota Camry<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  2. Toyota Celica<\/strong><\/a>: Like Camry, Celica is another made-up-in-Japan moniker. When pressed, Toyota reacted as if it\u2019s somehow dishonorable to make up a clever name for a consumer product. So as with Camry, Toyota later came up with a feeble explanation for the origin of the name \u2014 something about it sounding a little bit like the Latin word for \u201ccelestial.\u201d Whatever.<\/span><\/span>\n

    \"1976

    1976 Toyota Celica<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  3. Chevrolet Camaro<\/strong><\/a>: Camaro emerged from a GM marketing sheet containing more than 2,000 words that started with the letter \u201cC.\u201d\u00a0 And while some attempt was made to assert that it was an arcane French word for \u201cpal,\u201d it was in fact a made-up name. No matter, 50 years and six generations of Camaro later, it\u2019s acquired the meaning \u201cbadass sport coupe.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Oldsmobile Toronado<\/strong><\/a>: Toronado is one of those words that both sounds like it means something and looks like a typo. A cross between a mobile home\u2019s worst nightmare and a fancy beef dish with an extra vowel thrown in, it in fact means absolutely nothing.<\/span><\/span>\n

    \"1970

    1970 Oldsmobile Toronado<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n

  5. Mitsubishi Starion<\/strong>: Nope, it\u2019s not a mangled version of the word Stallion \u2014 it has no meaning in any known language.<\/span><\/span>\n

    \"Mitsubishi

    Mitsubishi Starion (photo courtesy of Jeremyg3030)<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This article has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder, Hagerty. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Click here for more<\/span>\u00a0<\/i>classic car stories<\/i><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0from Hagerty.<\/i><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":7982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[136],"tags":[3761,3757,3750,3760,79,593,885,3759,3752,1243,3762,3753,3754,3758,3755,3756,3751],"class_list":["post-7981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-automotive-history","tag-camaro-name","tag-camry-kenmuri","tag-car-names","tag-chevrolet-camaro","tag-chevy-camaro","tag-hagerty","tag-hagerty-classic-car-insurance","tag-japanese-car-names","tag-made-up-car-names","tag-mitsubishi-starion","tag-oldsmobile-toronado","tag-toyota-camry","tag-toyota-carina","tag-toyota-celica","tag-toyota-previa","tag-toyota-yaris","tag-unusual-car-names"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t