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Company
Names
Trivia |
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Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon
(from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most
voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger
volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then
prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos
named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity
of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically,
and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in
the relevant categories it was listed in.) |
Cadillac - Cadillac was named after the 18th century French
explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder
of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South
of France |
Coca-Cola - Coca-Cola's name 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' for the name to look
better. |
eBay - Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading
website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay
Technology Group. "Echo Bay" didn't refer to the
town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any
real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly
said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found
that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first.
So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the
second best name: eBay.com. |
B&Q - from the initials of its founders, Block and Quayle |
Google - the name is a misspelling of the word googol, reflecting
the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information
available online. |
Häagen-Dazs - Contrary to common belief, the name is not
European; it is simply two made-up words meant to look European
to American eyes. This is known in the marketing industry as
foreign branding.
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IKEA - founded by Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden. The name IKEA comes
from a clever acronym using the initials of the founder, Ingvar
Kamprad, who was from a family farm called Elmtaryd, which
was near the village of Agunnaryd. The acronym is for a Swedish
phrase but it turns out to be the same in English, Ingvar Kamprad's
Economical Alternative. |
Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler. |
Kodak - Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention
of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a favourite
with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried
out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K".
He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a
trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did
not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception
that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound
produced by the shutter of the camera.
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