Are Perceptions of Chinese-Character Brand Names Associated with Consumer Purchase Intention?: Evidence from China’s New Energy Vehicle Market

As battery performance, range, and intelligent features become baseline competitive attributes in China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) market, consumers also encounter brand and model names when forming impressions of vehicles. This study examines whether perceptions of Chinese-character naming are associated with brand attitude, subjective norm, and purchase intention. The stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model organizes these proposed associations, with customer-based brand equity theory and the theory of planned behavior serving complementary roles. The case analysis describes the naming architectures associated with six selected Chinese NEV companies and brands; reported sales and delivery series from 2021 to 2025 provide descriptive market context rather than estimates of naming effects; and a survey of 353 respondents examines the proposed associations using confirmatory factor analysis and controlled regressions. In the controlled purchase-intention model, naming semantic clarity, brand attitude, perceived quality, and subjective norm had positive coefficients, whereas perceived risk had a negative coefficient; the model explained 61.3% of the observed variance. Cultural resonance had no significant direct coefficient but had significant specific indirect associations through brand attitude and subjective norm. These cross-sectional findings are consistent with an associational brand-symbol pathway; they do not establish that names cause purchases or sales.