car name.s & numbers

[dustypuss]

Why do cars have numbers instead of names IE peugeot 106 citron C4 . what do these numbers mean

[Littlejohn]

They don't "mean" anything, that is they have no meaning that can be universally translated to any common standard.
The only thing that they generally have in common is that the smaller cars in the ranges tend to have smaller numbers and the larger cars have larger numbers.

[Panic Button]

Names are such riskiy things.

Remember the Vauxhall Nova, which they called Corsa elsewhere? Nova means or sounds a bit like No Go in some languages.

[dustypuss]

PB thank you for your answer ( I dont want to sound ungrateful but ) wasnt the nova called the Opel abroad .

[BenDToy]

Vauxhall is the UK brand name for General Motors, and what is called Opel in the rest of Europe. So for example they have an Opel Vectra or Opel Corsa. In the 70s and 80s they also used the Opel name in the UK, and each VX model had an equivalent Opel model which was almost identical eg Senator/Monza, Cavalier/Ascona, Chevette/Kadet. Carlton/Rekord.
The real reason for the growing use of numbers to identify car models is the fact that all of the "good" names are taken, and it is increasingly difficult to find new suitable names that have not been used or registered already., so many have resorted to using meaningless letter and/or number combinations.
In the US they don't like to use these numbers and/or letters so for example the Mazda MX5 is called the Miata.