– has a soft feel for both male and female professional and amateur players.

The selection of which golf ball to tee-off with is a personal choice of the player. Srixon has them in both ‘notice-me’ yellow, snow-white or lady-pink, with an appropriate same-slogan on both – soft feel.

The Brand name.

The golf product name is as important to the manufactures survival in this crowded global field, as to the players choice. It needs to be unique, modern, (even if it has evolved from the long parent company’s descriptive name) and of course, trademark clear! The spelling can be coined and unusual, by that it becomes memorable and identifiable! Yet, have a feel and tone in the name that flows implying the texture and potential of these golf balls in every swing-male or female.

So, where does the name Srixon come from?

Believe it or not, the Japanese parent company (Sumitomo Rubber Ltd, now SRI Sports Ltd), first manufactured rubber products since 1909 especially, motor racing tyres. So too did Michelin and Dunlop.

Sumitomo is a surname and their Marketing team soon realized that name would not fly, even though some surnames still have a place of longevity in the naming world.

How do you pronounce Srixon correctly?

Aside: I asked once again for clarification from my resident linguistic colleague in Japan.

ts スリクソン、surikuson (the ku is relatively quiet). So the main feeling is “slick” + “on”

Also, in Japanese, R and L are not easily distinguished from each other as there is only one sound they have which is similar to both of them. They often will mix these letters when translating to Roman characters, such as writing rice as “lice” etc.. so Srixon should have been Slixon if they had carefully considered the name for English speaking customers.

Global English speaking variations on the name Srixon.

These are for information (but please refer to the correct Japanese pronunciation above) to company directors and product managers how important it is to say your name out loud on the international markets before committing to the name on the table. You may not have a century to prove your brand worth!

Below are a few of the more common one’s heard around the golf fraternity

• Sir-icks-on;
• Sh-ryan;
• See-ree-on;
• Six iron -(Where did that come from as syllables are transposed?)

Conclusion.

I wasn’t seeking out Japanese words/products/names per se. I was merely fascinated by the spelling compared to how different continents would pronounce that morpheme “srix”. Fortunately, the mispronunciation has caused no harm in this case and the Brand is strong with world recognition and lasted over a century.

Furthermore, setting aside the Japanese prefix element the suffix “Xon” is a person’s first name that means “God is good” and is of Hebrew origin. It sounds like <Shon> but is common among modern-day naming of Asiatic children.

Srixon (always designing new products) holds the largest number of golf ball patents in the world! The product name works- it flies off the golf shelves as fast as it flies off the tees! It has that soft feel and tone to it. If you missed this golfparty.es because of ‘lockdown’ there will be many more supporting this strong brand name – S-R-I-X-O-N.

(c) Naming Alphabet Soup 101: Rosie Reay and www.brighternaming.com