Datsun was renamed because 'son' sounded like the Japanese word for loss
The small cars that led to the Nissan Bluebird were first sold as the Datson, meaning son of DAT. The trouble was that son sounds close to the Japanese word for loss, hardly ideal for a car company. By 1932 the spelling had changed to Datsun, a name that later went around the world.
DAT had built vehicles since 1914 but leaned heavily on government subsidies for its big trucks. A 1930 ministerial ordinance changed the market: cars with engines up to 500 cc needed no driving licence and carried lower purchase tax. DAT's answer was a shrunken version of an earlier model, powered by its own 495 cc four-cylinder engine, and the company's initials were recast as Durable, Attractive and Trustworthy.
The 1932 Datsun Type 11 matched the Austin Seven in both engine size and outside dimensions, and whether it was a licensed copy, an unlicensed one or neither remains disputed. Austin's chief engineer had lectured in Tokyo on British light cars in late 1929. Herbert Austin worried enough about his patents to import a 1935 Datsun for inspection, but chose not to complain. When the licence-free limit rose to 750 cc, Datsun enlarged its engines, and Britain's National Motor Museum at Beaulieu credits the 722 cc Type 14 of 1935, with its leaping-rabbit badge, as the birth of the Japanese car industry.
Civilian production faded as Japan turned to military vehicles, and cars returned in November 1947 with the DA series, partly bodied in wood because materials were scarce. In 1955 the Datsun Sedan 110 appeared, its 860 cc engine kept under 910 cc, the ceiling for small taxis.
The Bluebird name arrived in 1957, and the model ran until 2007 as Nissan's best-known sedan abroad. Export markets knew it by many labels, including Datsun 510 and 180B; Americans later bought it as the Stanza, and in 1992 its successor became the Altima.
Source: Nissan Bluebird
