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Do you know the history of the Nissan name?
By Product Expert | Posted in FAQs, For Fun on Wednesday, May 24th, 2017 at 8:00 pm
What does Nissan mean?
Nissan is a Japanese automaker, so there’s often the assumption that the name Nissan either is a family name, or some combination of words. This leads interested car enthusiasts to ask, “what does Nissan mean”? But you might be surprised to find out its origins are only half based on a name.
How Nissan got its name
If you’re familiar with the brand, you probably know that Nissan’s roots start with Datsun. It all started with a single model, which was made in 1914 and named DAT after the three creators: Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi. There were a couple of name changes and merges, but by 1931, the company made the Datsun Type 11, though it was originally called Datson (son of DAT), but renamed because son can also mean loss. Which is a decidedly negative word in the automotive industry.
Read More: History of the Nissan Altima
Meanwhile, the company Nihon Sangyo was founded in 1928, and earned the nickname Nissan for the for the first letters of each word (Ni-San), at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Initially, the company did not have its hands in the automotive industry, until 1933 when DAT Jidosha Seizo (as it was called by this time) was merged with another company owned by Nissan, Tobata Casting. By 1934, the automobile parts and manufacturing subsidiary was officially names Nissan Motor Co. It wouldn’t be until 1960 until Nissan Motor Corporation USA would be formed.
So there you have it. The Nissan name is not a Japanese surname, nor a combination of Japanese words, but actually a nickname that was based on the Tokyo Stock Exchange abbreviation for Nihon Sangyo, which wasn’t even in the auto business when it all started.
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