There's also a tight branding and trademark component.

I remember a major ad campaign when proper imported "Emmental" was rebranded as "Emmentaler" because the former name was becoming generic, and a related ad campaign about positioning and promoting Emmentaler as one of several kinds of "Swiss Cheese" along with Gruyere, Sbrinz and maybe a fourth one I don't recollect.

> proper imported "Emmental" was rebranded as "Emmentaler"

It’s also called Emmentaler (from Emmental) in Switzerland.

https://www.emmentaler.ch/en/our-history