We Finnish people might be morons

I take pictures while I do groceries. Lately, it’s been of products with Finnish or a Finnish sounding names. I wonder if they’re from Finland, but guess what—they rarely are.

We Finns are either complete morons or just insecure about our language. We’ve always been hesitant to use Finnish in our international brand names. It’s too complicated or foreign for people to say, spell or remember. I’ve also heard some one say that it doesn’t look cool. If that’s all true, then why do I keep seeing pseudo-Finnish products everywhere?

Yay! I found some Finnish raw chocolate. So I thought. Raaka means raw in Finnish but this chocolate comes from Brooklyn, NY. The chocolatier claims no Finnish heritage.

Our old master rulers, the Swedes have a galore of internationally successful brands, in Swedish. We say, Swedish is more familiar since it’s a Germanic language like English, while Finnish is closer to Elvish. I think that’s just an excuse for playing it safe. Risk-taking is not encouraged in current Finnish culture.

All we Finns really want is to hang out with the cool kids. It’s like in high school, we want to fit in, not stick out. That’s another reason why we often lean towards English-derived names. Not because we wouldn’t have any suitable vocabulary for global branding. We’re equally proud and ashamed of our difficult language, unwilling to see the value in it’s uniqueness.

Kaukana means far away. But wait, it’s not spelled right. That’s because it’s not Finnish. It’s a Native American word meaning portage, and a town 100 miles north of Milwaukee.

Rohto is an archaic Finnish word for medicine. These eye drops however, are a product of a Japanese Rohto Pharmaceutical, named after a German ophthalmologist August von Rothmund—at least so they say.

But wait, what about Nokia, Neste or Kone? All Finnish companies with Finnish names. Kudos to our trailblazers but where’s everyone else?

The combination of being in Finnish and from Finland is unique, valued and remembered. One without the other is less. If we really want our brands to benefit from the appeal, desirability and magic of things coming from up north, we need to get over a couple of things:

First, we need to be ok being the weird kid in class. Grownups know that it’s better to stand out than fit in. We already did that with our music: It was after we started embracing our heavy metal side that we started hitting the global charts.

Second, we should stop being anal about pronunciation and relentlessly trying to educate Americans how to say Teemu Selänne and other Finnish NHL players’ names. Let’s stop telling people how to say it if our way doesn’t stick. It’s not going to poison our folklore or brand. It’s also arrogant to bitch your customers about their Finnish skills. The Swedes don’t try to get everyone to say Ikea the Swedish way.

Väri is Finnish for color, and the pattern looks nordic. Yet, not from Finland.

There’s no denying, we still have an abundance of screwed-up words and names that people just can’t say, spell or remember. So just keep it simple and test it out. You can be Finnish from Finland—many American brands already pretend to be.

Hey, wait a minute! I gave up my Finnish name, so who am I to tell people what to do? Well, it was either too hard to say, spell or remember—or I’m a moron too.

This must be a Finnish product! No señoree Bob, it’s Mexican flavors from Dallas, TX. By the way, the Finnish word “mölli” translates to moron.