Someone related the joke about how this name was derived, thinking that it was true. I said I think it was just a joke, but then I was asked “Well, what does it mean?”
I’m not a Japanese linguist, so does it translate to anything meaningful?
My understanding is that the name doesn’t “mean” anything. When the name was in use, Japanese products were still considered “cheap” in the US so they tried to come up with a name that didn’t sound Japanese. Later, when that perception changed, they dropped the “Datsun” name.
How they came up with Datsun, I don’t know.
By the way, the CEO of Nissan recently hinted that the Datsun name would soon make a comeback.
Better reserve your “ICE CAR” vanity plates (“Datsun-ice car,” get it?)
-Andrew L
What was the joke?
RR
I need you to design an inexpensive car for me and I need it quickly.
We’ll do out best when do you need it.
Six weeks.
Dat sun?
Haj
hajario provided the text, but the set-up is that a German (some say VW) engineer went to Japan looking for help and responded to the very short design estimate with
“Dat soon?”
I always thought they changed the name because it sounded too much like “ditsoon”, a perjorative term for African-Americans.
WWII and a Datsun car factory has just been bombed to excess. A young boy is playing in his back yard when he is forced to run inside dodging falling metal. On his way in he picks up a piece of debris and, holding it up, cries:
“Look mummy it’s raining Datsun cogs!”
Since this has become a bad jokes thread I, having provided the factual answer, am entitled to post another bad joke:
Q. What’s worse than raining cats and dogs?
A. Hailing cabs.
Give credit where credit is due: that feghoot was written by A. Bertram Chandler and it appeared in the June 1982 issue of “Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,” under the title “A Clockwork Lemon.” (The best issue that the magazine ever published, though I’m prejudiced. 
)
Ah yeah, I had no idea where it came from. I could only remember the punchline (such that it is) and had to improvise the rest 
Isn’t the name Nissan derived from “Nice one!”
That part is inaccurate. “To” is one of the possible pronunciations for the “hare” character. It appears that “Dat” used to be represented by two characters that mean “hare” and “loss.” But written/transcribed any other way, neither Dat nor Datson/Datsun sounds funny or offensive in Japanese.
Nissan is short for Nippon Sangyo, i.e. Japan Industries. It may not be an official meaning of the name, but I think it’s pretty obvious. Similarly Nikon is short for Nippon Kogaku, i.e. Japan Optics. This is more clear since the company used to be named Nippon Kogaku. I think the extra ‘n’ is to make it sound like Ikon, the German brand.
[our pastor](What is Nissan?)
bought one because he said it was scriptural to do so…they are mentioned in the bible.
Yes, mrcrow, but you bought a Nissan, not a Datsun. It would make things easier for followers of the thread if you referred back to MC Master of Cermonies in your post.
OK, I’m apparently especially dense these days, because this is the second thing in this thread I had never heard of.
“Ditsoon?”
RR