i'm with sic.

Ummmmmmm...yes. I totally could.
When they tried to write Coca Cola in chinese they wanted to find 4 words that when said aloud would sound like "Coca Cola" and would mean something positive and applicable to a drink. They couldn't find any. If you say Coca Cola's name in chinese it sounds more like Ko-Koo Coo-leh.

In fact before they were able to come up with a standardized transliteration for Coca Cola (Which means "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice") Chinese shopkeepers would advertise that they sold products called "bite the wax tadpole" or "wax flattened mare" because those are both closer transliterations of the sounds in the word Coca Cola.

可口可乐, which I would phonetically transcribe to Kheh-Khou Kheh-Leh literally means "tasty and good to drink". Try to beat that.

That would be good. But that's not what they used.

That's how they call Coke in China now so I dare to say that's what they went for when they decided to solve the problem once and for all. I can understand Chinese shopkeepers would have trouble with finding the best transcription when English doesn't differentiate tones, some Americans pronounce it without aspiration and the simplest characters should be used. If I use pinyin, you can get anything from "gōu ga gōu la" to "kòu ká kòu lǎ" with all the variations in between which provides lots of leeway for different versions.

Now that we had a serious discussion on the subject and explained the intricacies of Chinese, the fun factor (if there ever was any) in the notion that Pemberton foresaw the way Chinese would codify the name of his invention quickly dissipated.

dream destroyed. sad face