On the talk about marketing names for sorghum, the less-used Spanish name for this grain, zahína, seems to me (a non-Spanish speaker) like it might be an excellent possibility for sorghum-based products. Only possible slight drawback is that it has a secondary meaning of a thin flour porridge, or one that doesn't thicken (not sure how that works).

Interestingly, Zahina (or Zaheena) in Arabic - زهينّا - is a woman's name meaning "intelligent."

Back to the Spanish zahína, it traces back to an entirely different word in the Andalusian Arabic dialect (once spoken in Spain) that means ... sorghum.

So there doesn't seem to be any really problematic meaning to watch out for.

Anyway, it seems to me that this "zahina" could be a useful sorghum product or product line name, at least in English, but not to replace "sorghum" or "milo" in common parlance.

How it might play in Hispanophone communities and countries would be another question. Does "sorgo" have the same mixed reception among Spanish speakers that "sorghum" is said to have in English?

"Milo" - having mentioned it - is actually a very convenient way to refer to grain sorghum, altho apparently on farms in Kansas (the biggest producer of sorghum in the US) it's associated with feed for animals. Also, in English we don't generally have names for edible grains different from those of the crop (as they sometimes do in Chinese, for example, or as we in English have for some meats vs. the names of the animals they are taken from). Etymologically, "milo" may trace back to the Portuguese word for millet, "milho."

Will leave it there,

Don