Same can be said about at least half of the brand names coming out of China these days. They’re invented by people who may have only limited knowledge of English, thus not knowing if it’s going to be perceived as ‘weird’ or not by native English speakers.
Does Xiaomi sound any better? Does Allmaybe? Shockli? Haikelite? LiitoKala? Wurkkos? Glaree? Moobibear? There must be thousands of Chinese brands out there that sound weird in English.
Xiaomi sounds better because it sounds stereo-typically Chinese to “western” ears. All those other brand names you listed don’t “sound” Chinese whatsoever, hence they are the “weird” ones.
Then there is UranusFire… I’m sure I’m missing some ‘good’ ones.
Alas, like with everything, people get used to hearing these names and after a while, they may not sound weird anymore. Although not Chinese, I’m sure Mazda, Toyota, Sanyo, Samsung sounded weird at first.
So I heard about these two immigrants who were in line in New York Harbor, decades ago.
The first one came from Norway, the second one came from China.
And they got to the head of the line and the immigration officer asked the tall blond guy his name
“Ingemar Johannsen”
The immigration officer wrote it down and said ‘Next’.
The short black haired guy came forward and the immigration officer asked his name, and he said
“Sam Ting”
The immigration officer filled out the form and said “Welcome, Mr. Johannsen. It’s unusual for two men to come through one after the other with the same name.”
Let me help you - in my language it should be pronounced hła-łej
Just two Chinese symbols: 华 means magnificent, splendid, it is the last symbol in the God’s name; 为 means to become, bo be, to do.
In Pinyin: Huá wéi ; so it should be both pronounced on the 2nd tone (almost like when asking: “hua? wei?”