Translating the name of a business
 

Hello,
I am having a debate with someone at work about whether its proper to translate the name of a business. I say no, a business name should not be translated. Please give me your thoughts.

Thank you!

Business names are generally not translated. I've seen many articles written in Spanish that talk about Lexmark, IBM, Apple, Lotus, UPS, Toshiba, Sony, Prada, etc., without providing the reader with a translation.

In principle, I'd only leave proper names in English:
·La financiera McGraw Hill
·La calificadora Standard y Poor's
.La empresa Coca-Cola
...

However, it's hard to stick to such style, and usually in the press the whole business names are left as they originally are in English:
·McGraw Hill Financial
·Standard and Poor's / Standard & Poor's
·Coca-Cola Company
·Accuvest Global Advisors
...

If the name is difficult to pronounce, for the English speakers at least, it's translated. Example: Medecins sans frontieres becomes Doctors Without Borders.
Red Cross becomes Cruz Roja among Spanish speakers I know. Maybe the rule changes for charities, because Blue Cross heath insurance is Blue Cross for Spanish speakers too.

As a general rule, proper names should not be translated. This includes names of people, businesses, places, companies, etc. However, where convention has already established a translation, it can be used, e.g. Sevilla => Seville. I'm sure there are also some cases where it would make sense to translated a proper name.

When an organization or company has an official presence in several countries, they often decide how their name appears in different languages.

With organisations (other than really well known ones like the UN / ONU, NATO / OTAN, etc), in newspapers I often see a translated name, followed by e.g. "(ABBR, de sus siglas en inglés)", and then ABBR being used for the rest of the article.

I'm agree with the Rusty's answer.

Business names should not be translated...

Acronyms on the other hand (PJT) can be translated with an entry of the English initials (siglas en inglés).

My :twocents: