The Utilization of English in the Franchise and SMEs Business Names in Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating naming patterns of organizations in Thailand with an emphasis on franchise and SME business names.  In so doing, the researcher first identified and analyzed English usage as well as ascertained the extent to which consumers understood and interpreted various product names. Consequently, data of product names were collected resulting in 658 franchise and SME business names from six product categories: food (171 items), bakery and beverages (236 items), education (112 items), services (44 items), beauty and herbs (46 items), and retail shops (49 items). In addition, a questionnaire was conducted with Thai respondents (n= 104), selected by means of convenience sampling through such social media as Line, Facebook pages and Facebook Messenger. Together, they represented Thai office workers and university students. Major findings are as follows: 1) The entrepreneurs created their product names in three features as follows: English names (51%), code-mixed names (31%) and Thai names (18%), respectively. 2) The patterns of English usage for franchise and SME business names had many features. These were common noun, compound noun, noun phrase, initial, a mixture of Thai and English words, and a name that was modified by Thai or English words. And 3) most respondents selected the correct answers (77.8%), followed by unclear answer (16.7%) and wrong answer (5.5%) respectively.  Apart from this, several external factors appeared to influence consumer understanding, such as advertising, multimodality, and creativity.