Ever wondered how Google, Facebook, Yahoo and some other similar top companies got their names? Most of us probably don’t put too much thought into the brand names that we often come across. There is a meaning behind the origin of the big brands. Scroll down the list below to know the origin of some big brand names
Originally, “Google” was an accidental misspelling of “googol,” the number 1 followed by 100 zeros (or 10 raised to the power of a 100), a number which the search company’s founders thought reflected their goal of amassing and organizing extensive amounts of available information online. The domain “google.com” was available and the name stuck.
Yahoo! – an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” AND an imaginary species described as rude, noisy and violent in Jonathan swift’s ”Gulliver’s Travels”
Facebook’s name comes from the books given to newly enrolled students at U.S. universities to help them get to know one another. The name for Facebook came from the publications that some colleges pass out to students at the beginning of the year to help students get to know each other better, called a Facebook.
Apple is named after the fruit because not only was it co-founder Steve Jobs’ favorite, but he also worked on an apple orchard. The warm, simple and relatable name “Apple” also served to set the computer company apart from its competitors.
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore originally named their company N M Electronics. Later they wanted to change it to Integrated Electronics, but that name was taken. Instead, they used the initial syllables of IntegratedElectronics to come up with “Intel,” and then purchased rights to companies with similar names, like Intelco, to avoid conflict.
It was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.Bill Gates created the name “Microsoft” because the company is dedicated to microcomputer software.
The founder elected for something “exotic and different” and chose Amazon, pulling references between the big Amazon river and what he envisions his company to be – real big.
The initial name for the project that turned into Skype was “Sky peer-to-peer”, a phrase which described the voice-over-IP service,which was then abbreviated to “Skyper”. But the domain names associated with “Skyper” were already taken so they dropped the final “r” in order to secure the domain name “Skype”
Though co-founder Jack Dorsey rejected the name “Twitch,” he looked to the dictionary to find similar words. Once the founders came across “twitter,” meaning “a short burst of inconsequential information” and “chirps from birds,” they knew there was no better name for their social network.
Co-founder John Warnock lived in a house in front of the Adobe Creek, which inspired his company’s name.
Adidas comes from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler, combining Adi + Das to form the shoe brand.
With slightly altered spelling, Reebok’s name comes from “rhebok” (Pelea capreolus), which is an African antelope.
The keyboard buttons of the first device made by the company resembled the blackberry fruit. Thus, the name.
This is a pretty straight-forward one. The word Samsung in Korean means “three stars” and was chosen to represent the virtues of being “big, numerous and powerful
Pepsi is named after the digestive enzyme pepsin, which breaks down food proteins.
Nikon comes from the original name Nippon Kogaku, meaning “Japanese Optical.”