Abstract: With the increase of the cooperation between China and Western countries in various fields, how to translate English brand names into Chinese plays an essential role in earning popularity for companies. Customers have different thoughts due to different culture backgrounds. So the Chinese translation of English brand names is closely related to target customers’ culture background, psychology and aesthetics. This essay mainly discusses the Chinese translation principles and strategies of English brand names. The author starts the essay by analyzing the current studies on brand name translation. Secondly, the author states the function of brand names and introduces four features of brand names, simple and easy to remember, innovative and persuasive, highlighting product features and reflecting local culture. Next, the author adopts the “Three Beauty” translation principles which was originally presented by Xu Yuanchong, namely beauty in sound, beauty in form and beauty in sense. Then the author elaborates five translation strategies with some practical examples, literal translation, transliteration, free translation, combination of sound and meaning and no translation. In the end, the author draws a conclusion that brand name translation is a kind of interculture communication and an art to achieve beauty in sound, form and sense.
Key words: brand name; translation; principles; strategies
