Italian Commercial Names: brand and product names on the globalized market

Italian brand names are generally transparent in their semantics and in their word formation, compared with the German product names, which tend to be more opaque or even obscure, using irregular word formation strategies, like opaque hybrid blend names, clipping or shortening. Phrases, hybrid names, compounds and blends as brand names are semantically very clear for the consumer; they give enough information about the designated product and represent it in a most complete way. Despite the use of geographical names and personal or family names and finally of company names , which are a rich source for brand names in general, we may conclude by saying that advertising by the food industry is uses the Italian language for its own sake, but as compared to product names for the international market, Italian ones are the result of a different strategy, the “country of origin effect”