There are two things we couldn’t have foreseen when Nissan unveiled the Qashqai in 2007. The first was just how popular the car would become pretty much overnight and that it would start the most annoying of new car trends – ridiculous names.

The main offenders are mostly compact crossover types. Rivals, for the most part; competitors in pursuit of your cash. But let’s start with genesis: the Nissan sort-of-affectionately known as the Cashcow. It certainly made Nissan a few quid.

It started with a Qashqai

People couldn’t pronounce Qashqai at first. The resulting fuss went mainstream and suddenly everyone knew about a car that might otherwise have gained less traction than a declawed rat up a greased drainpipe. And now, it seems, everyone wants to try the same trick.

Hang your heads in shame, Renault, Ford and Jaguar. Stop what you’re doing, Citroën and Bentley. Just stop. Even Suzuki, you need to pay attention too.

Never thought it would come to this

Renault’s Kadjar is a name so unfathomably odd that the very first press release it featured in had to explain its anti-climactic origins. Why create a new, awkward and ultimately meaningless word when there are so many good ones littering Western European speech?

Ford is guilty of spelling crimes with its Kuga, which was originally released at around the same time as the Qashqai. The car might be okay, but the spelling isn’t big or clever. Why they felt the need to name another car after the same big cat as they’d previously used for a 1990s wannabe-posh saloon is beyond me. Again, plenty of other fish (words) in the sea (language).

Jaguar. Oh dear. The F-Pace. A name that sounds so fundamentally rubbish that they’ve released it on its own to give people a chance to stop ridiculing it before the car actually goes on sale. It might sound better on the wall of a really cheap nightclub: ‘March 12th – DJ F-Pace plus special guests’.

Thorny issues

At least Citroën used an actual word when they named the Cactus, but what a practical family crossover with bump protection strips has got in common with spiky plants from hot countries is anyone’s guess. It’s not a name that makes me want to buy one. Personally, I haven’t found cacti desirable since I was a small child seeing them in the flesh for the first time at a garden centre.

Suzuki deserves a mention for the S-Cross. It sounds more like something you’ll find in the puzzles section of the newspaper than a car, but at least it isn’t F-Pace.

What is it about crossovers that inspires car makers to choose such ridiculous names? The Qashqai has already played that card and it was a one-time deal. We’re not amazed and enthralled by daft names any more – or is it just me?

Heritage – or not?

Bentley’s Bentayga takes the biscuit. Pronounced Ben-tiger, it’s the name of a big rock in a desert somewhere. As a name it has zero class, zero heritage and could just as well be a kind of football boot. It doesn’t fit a car that will cost upwards of £200,000.

Fortunately, Bentley doesn’t expect to sell many to us, anyway. Most will go to buyers in the Middle East and Asia, where desirability is less constrained by familiar concepts of taste.

Please, manufacturers, stop this madness. Go back to giving your cars names we can relate to, names we can understand immediately and names that we know mean something good.

After the Qashqai debacle, Nissan is already back on form with the Pulsar. A good, strong name with all the right connotations.

But here’s the rub: the car with the oddball name is brilliant, and the car with the good name isn’t. It seems we cannot win.