How impressive does B747 or A380 sound? Manufacturers have largely stopped giving fancy names to airliners, and I'm sure Boeing has some regrets about calling the 787 'Dreamliner'.

919 is one of the greatest Porsches ever so some marketing dept thinks its pretty good.

see the wikipedia entry on Chinese numerology, esp. number 9.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerology#Nine

tl;dr - Chinese pronunciation of 9 sounds similar to the Chinese word for longevity/long life.

You'd rarely see the number 4 used since that sounds like the pronunciation for the word 'death'.

8 is another popular number, synonymous with wealth.

Go into a parking lot with many Asian drivers - you can pick many of the Chinese drivers just by looking at their license plates and checking if they have one or more 8's or 9's (and lack of 4's) in the license plate.

Applies to many number-based items - phone numbers, highrises targeted at Asians may skip the 4th and 14th floors (haven't been in such buildings with more than 20 stories, but I'd assume the pattern would extend to any floor with a 4 in it - no idea about buildings with more than 39 floors)

Once you know about it, it's hard to unsee...

OMG, that explains so many things.

Thanks!