Abstract: with the development of economy, companies across the world communicate with each other frequently. A large number of foreign products come into Chinese market, and at the same time, the Chinese brand names go pretty well on the international stage. The first and direct way to communicate is through the brand names. The brand names not only display the message concerning the product itself, but convey the cultural information to the consumers in the target market. However, due to the different culture, companies need a bridge to get to know the brand name. There comes the brand name translation. Brand name translation is more a kind of cross-cultural communication than a pure form of translation practice. Therefore, this paper talks about the brand name translation from the cross-cultural point of view. It introduces the general knowledge of brand name briefly and the relationship between brand name and culture. At the same time, this paper reveals the essence of brand name translation. It then dwells with ample evidence on the principles of brand name translating. There are seven approaches to brand name translation that are talked. The transliteration, the literal translation, the free translation, the combination of transliteration and literal translation, the the combination of transliteration and free translation, the non-translation and the logo-oriented translation. The transliteration includes direct, partial and meaning-oriented translation. At the end, it concludes that translators should take the target culture into consideration and suggest what companies should do to cater to the target market in the brand name translation.
Key words: brand name; culture; translation; approaches
