Is there a name for a domestic company that uses a foreign (sounding) name?
Is there a (British Engligh) word to describe a company that uses a foreign word as it's name for marketing purposes? For example, Tableau is an American data visualisation company and tableau is French for picture. Or Wagamama is a British restaurant that sells Japanese food and wagamama is Japanese for self-indulgence.
this has caused much debate in the office.
I can't find a single word, but Wikipedia defines the marketing strategy of foreign branding as assigning:
foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, products, and services
with the aim of
trying to make customers believe that the company and/or its products originate from a more favourable country than they actually do
Perhaps you could refer to the habit as faux-foreign branding?