Generic trademarks in Spanish

The article deals with generic trademarks derived from other types of proper names. Nowadays, analyzing trademarks needs a well-defined systematic approach. This article focuses on classifying 103 trademarks that are widely used in European Spanish. The main goal of the research is to analyze trademarks that are generic terms for all similar products. After revealing the origin of each trademark, we managed to work out a classification of appellative patterns; we also identified the donor language of borrowed trademarks and described several factors that contribute to genericizing the trademark. The results could be used in lexicographical studies and pragmalinguistic analysis, as well as in onomastic research.