Growing up, portable cassette players were always called “freestyles” here. I never knew it was a marketing thing, or that some other countries also objected to the naming.
this is “original research”, which means i dicked around on the internet archive for half an hour. it may be wrong.
This is fake news! It was always called “Tragbares Musikkassettenabspielgerät” in Germany.
the swedish language council tried to make it “bärspelare” as well, but to no avail