How 39 Famous Companies Got Their Names
Wendy's founder Dave Thomas' daughter was named Melinda, but Wendy was her nickname.
7-Eleven was renamed from "U-Tote'm" in 1946 to reflect their newly extended hours, 7:00 am until 11:00 pm. Although most are now open 24/7, they stuck with the name.
Adobe is from the Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of co-founder John Warnock.
Starbucks is named after Starbuck, a character in the novel Moby-Dick.
Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory.
Google was originally accidental misspelling of the number googol and settled upon because google.com was unregistered. Googol is pronounced the same way and is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. It was proposed to reflect the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company from the earlier name of Cadabra.com after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon.
LG is not from “Life’s good” but is from the combination of two popular Korean brands, Lucky and Goldstar.
AMC Theatres is from American Multi-Cinema and they pioneered multi-screen cinemas.
Pepsi gets it’s name from the digestive enzyme pepsin. It originally was marketed as a healthy drink that would aid in digestion.
Mitsubishi has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (which is pronounced bishi when at the end of a word) means diamond (the shape). Hence, the three diamond logo.
Lego is a combination of the Danish "leg godt", which means to "play well." Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but the company claims this is only a coincidence.
Apple is for the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. It was also meant to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time.
Arby's is the enunciation of the initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers.
ASICS is an acronym for Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, which means "Healthy soul in a healthy body" in Latin.
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. He reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
AT&T was the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation and they officially changed their name to AT&T in the 1990s.
BIC Corporation was named after one of its founders, Marcel Bich. He dropped the H to avoid a potentially inappropriate English pronunciation of the name.
Sony is from the Latin word "sonus" meaning sound.
Cisco is short for San Francisco.
Coca-Cola is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the K of kola to C to make the name look better.
Epson was named from "Son of Electronic Printer."
AMD is from Advanced Micro Devices.
GEICO is an acronym of Government Employees Insurance Company.
Reebok is an alternate spelling of rhebok, an African antelope.
Häagen-Dazs was made up in 1961 by the founders and has no meaning.
IKEA is a composite of the first letters in the Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.
Samsung means "three stars" in Korean.
Volkswagen is German for “people's car.”
Microsoft was originally Micro-Soft and the name was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTtware.
Nabisco was formerly The National Biscuit Company, and was changed in 1971 to Nabisco.
Sharp was named after one of their first products, an ever-sharp pencil.
Aflac is from the company's previous name of American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus (which remains the legal name of their underwriting subsidiary).
QVC is from Quality, Value, and Convenience.
Samsonite got it’s name from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.
3M is from the company's original name, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.
Sega comes from SErvice GAmes of Japan and was founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japan for use on American military bases.
Volvo is Latin for "I roll."
Sprint is from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. At the time, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.
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