Since we found out why by one of our readers in a comment he left on our 2008 Honda Jazz / Fit article, we thought it’d be only fair to post the comment as is:
“You know why they didn’t call the Honda Jazz/Fit by its intended name?
Honda had originally planned to name the first-gen the Honda Fitta. Probably sounds ok to you? If you were in Scandinavia though that would be the same as calling the car “the Honda Pussy”!
That’s why they chose to call it the Honda Jazz in Europe but modified the original name slightly to Honda Fit in the US (Honda deemed Fit to be too close to the original name in Scandinavia). Honda had even made the brochures and the slogan for the model when the name problem was discovered.
The slogan: “Small on the outside but big on the inside”. Just imagine the adverts for that car in Scandinavia: Honda Fitta (Pussy). Small on the outside but big on the inside!”