Two news stories caught my attention today. One is the listing of Chinese company 51 Talk on New York Stock Exchange. 51 Talk is an online English education service founded in 2011. Its corporate site is 51talk.com. Why 51? 51 rhymes with 无忧 (no worries) and 我要 (I want), so the brand becomes “I want to talk” and “No worries to talk”.
The name is very appropriate for the language service. According to the company, outside China the name is pronounced as “Five One Talk”. So, the name can be used both inside and outside China. The .com extension reinforces its global image.
The other news story is the recent launch of an online wedding service called 66结婚网 (Jie Hun Wang= wedding net) on the domain name 66wedding.com. 66 is related to the Chinese idiom 六六大顺 (everything is going smoothly), so the name means “smooth wedding.” Again, 66wedding can be used both inside and outside China and .com gives it the global image.
Now, let’s look at the domain names in more details. There are three characteristics that I can find.
1. Each of the numbers (51 and 66) has two digits. The numbers have good meanings that are relevant to the services offered.
2. The English part of the domain names are common words that Chinese consumers can understand.
3. .com is used.
As I have said many times, Chinese like two-character names. Its cultural. The implication is 2N (and 2L) names are popular. 2N + simple English word is acceptable. This is particularly evident in the case of 51Talk.com
Before going overseas and before listing on NYSE, the company’s executives must have studied in depth the suitability of 51talk.com as money was no longer a problem. They kept the domain name, thus giving a lot of credibility to 2N+English .com domain names.
If you are interested in this type of domain names, here are some suggestions.
Find 2N that have good meanings. Below I have listed 10 numbers for your study. You can also find more 2N numbers on Coreile.com/123.
| Number | Chinese | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 04 | 零食 | Snacks |
| 11 | 游游 | Travel, travel |
| 21 | 爱意 | Love |
| 37 | 商机 | Business opportunity |
| 43 | 时尚 | Fashion |
| 55 | 窝窝 | Group |
| 68 | 来吧 | Please come |
| 77 | 吃吃 | Eat, eat |
| 84 | 巴士 | Bus |
| 91 | 就医 | Seek doctors |
Another suggestion is to think of simple English words to go with the numbers. For example, words such as job, car, money, baby, bus, taxi, food, and tv are easy to remember.
While this is not a full-scale market study, the two examples do suggest the potential of 2N+English .com domain names for business use. If you have any question or suggestion, please use the Chat link.
Great article Kassey! Awesome insight on number meanings and use cases.
Thanks!!
Thanks Steve. “short” is the key.
Always nice to see what is trending and why. Especially in oversees markets. Keeping one finger on the pulse is definitely a good strategy to insuring good ROI.
China in particular. It’s too big to be ignored.