(Publ. 30 AUG 2019) Bastard Burgers, a successful Swedish chain of hamburger restaurants, recently discovered a trademark clash in the county Skåne, the southern part of Sweden. An already established restaurant in Malmö carried the name Bastard, and to avoid potential confusion, the owners of Bastard Burgers decided to change the name before opening twelve new restaurants in the region.

The importance of being thorough when selecting a name also became obvious to the owners of Bastard Burgers when they started thinking about an international expansion. Questions like how does one keep the basic idea of a name and simultaneously not offend people by using a word that might create a negative feeling (bastard), were suddenly raised.

Simon Wanler, CEO of Bastard Burgers states that he is not at all worried about that the name change in Skåne will become an obstacle for the progress of the hamburger chain.

Our sister company, the naming agency Skriptor Zigila, specializes in creating names that are strong both from a communicative and a legal perspective. You may find some of our cases interesting, where we, together with Skriptor Zigila, have created and protected a MedTech-brand for ContextVision, Bonava for NCC and a global pharmaceutical brand for Nycomed.