Will Lincoln's confusing car names ever change?

• A Ford executive cracks the door a bit when it comes to model designations
• MKC%3F MKX%3F MKZ%3F At present%2C it%27s hard to remember which is which
• He won%27t commit to a change%2C but notes the China market knows Lincoln%27s historic names best

LOS ANGELES -- Ford's Lincoln division certainly isn't the only luxury automaker with confusing alpha-names for its models, but an executive here last week cracked the door a tiny bit when it comes to the idea they might change. But maybe not in the U.S.

Jim Farley, Ford's executive vice president in charge of global marketing, noted that Lincoln has "a lot of iconic names" -- remember the Continental? -- and that it's worth weighing models' "legacy" names as models are refreshed.

Reason? China. Lincoln will be reintroduced in China and the people there still remember the luxury label for its historically famous models. Farley says many there associate Lincoln as the car of presidents and other government officials.

But Farley says in an interview there's no imminent change being announced, at least for the moment. Lincoln continues to have an alphabet soup of names for many buyers may have trouble remembering, made all the more complicated by the new MKC small crossover being shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show here, open to the public through Dec. 1.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally reportedly had hesitation about Lincoln's naming structure when it came to the job in 2006, but he has since come to embrace the whole bunch, from the MKC to the MKZ, a midsize car.