The mistranslation of “AstraZeneca”, the name of a pharmaceutical company that makes one of the COVID-19 vaccines, is being distributed online. While users claim that AstraZeneca means “weapon to kill”, the company explained AstraZeneca was created from two company names, Astra AB and Zeneca Group, where Astra is derived from the Greek for “star” and Zeneca is a name coined by a trading agency was invented.
The reports (here, here, here, here) show a screenshot of translations of “astra”, “she” and “necare”, which claims that “astra” in Hinduism means “weapon”, “she” in Polish “that ” mean. , and “necare” means “kill” in Latin, and concludes that “Astra Ze Neca” means “Weapon that kills”. Captions on the posts include: “Wake up, fools!”; “The more you know …”; and “checked it, watched.”
Although these individual translations appear to be correct for these languages (here, here, here, here), the reports chose arbitrary languages to translate the words into English: “Astra” also means “star” in Latin (here) and ” Necat “means” rescue “in Turkish (here).
The etymology for star also contains several roots, including Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit (www.etymonline.com/word/*ster-).
AstraZeneca was founded in 1999 with the merger of the Swedish company Astra AB (founded in 1913) and the British company Zeneca Group (founded in 1993) (here, here).
In 2019, AstraZeneca explained the origin of their brand on Twitter here and here . They said: ” Astra ‘has its origins in the Greek astron, meaning’ star ” and ” Zeneca ‘is a name created by an agency commissioned to find a name that began with a letter at the top or bottom of the alphabet and was phonetically memorable, with no more than three syllables and has no offensive meaning in any language. ”
Former Zeneca CEO Sir David Barnes (here) told The Telegraph in 2001 (here) that he had asked the trade agency Interbrand to come up with a name for his company.
Reuters rejected claims in March 2021 that AstraZeneca means “kill stars” in Latin, as seen here in Spanish.
VERDICT
Partly false. Astra is derived from Greek for ‘star’ and Zeneca is a name invented by a branding agency.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.