The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of the Latin
word sonus, which is the root of sonic and sound, the English word
"sunny", and from the word Sonny-boys which is Japanese slang for
"whiz kids". However "Sonny" was thought to sound too much like the
Japanese saying soh-nee which means business goes bad. Morita
pushed for a word that does not exist in any language so that they
could claim the word "Sony" as their own (which paid off when they
sued a candy producer using the name, who claimed that "Sony" was
an existing word in some language).
from wiki
