How they named companies
ABN AMRO- In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands). In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABNand Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.Acccenture - Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norwayas part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.
Adidas- from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
Adobe- came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .
AltaVista- Spanish for "high view".
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.)
AMD- Advanced Micro Devices.
Apache- The name was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it's considered a cute name that stuck: its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'a patchy' server â€" thus the name Apache.
Apple- for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.
AT&T- American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.
Bauknecht- Founded as an electrotechnical workshop in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht .
BBC- Stands for British Broadcasting Corporation.
BenQ- Bringing ENjoyment and Quality to life
Blaupunkt- Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.
BMW- abbreviation of Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Factories)
Borealis - The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, is the celestial phenomenon that features bursts of light in colourful patterns dancing across the night skies of the north. Borealis, inspired from the shining brilliance of the Northern Lights, was formed in 1994 out of the merger between two northern oil companies, Norway's Statoil and Finland's Neste.
BP - formerly British Petroleum, now "BP" (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000).
BRAC- abbreviation for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, world's largest NGO (non governmental organization). It works in development programs around the world.
Bridgestone- named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (??) means "stone bridge", i.e. "bridge of stone".
Bull- Compagnie des machines Bull was founded in Paristo exploit the patents for punched card machines taken out by a Norwegian engineer, Fredrik Rosing Bull.
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.
Canon- Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.
CGI- from the first letter of Information Management Consultant in french (Conseiller en Gestion et Informatique).
Cisco- short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co" -- Computer Information Services was the department at StanfordUniversitythat the founders worked in.
COBRA- Computadores Brasileiros, "Brazilian Computers", electronics and services company, was the first state-owned designer and producer of computers in the 1970s, later acquired by the Banco do Brasil.
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.
Colgate-Palmolive- formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after WilliamColgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.
Compaq- from "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.
Comsat - an American digital telecommunications and satellite company, founded during the President Kennedy era to develop the technology. Contraction of Communications Satellites.
Daewoo- the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.
Dell- named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.
DHL- the company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company's moniker.
eBay- Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " EchoBay" 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.
Epson - Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"
Fanta- was originally invented by Max Keith in Germanyin 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from byproducts of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.
Fazer - named after its founder, Karl Fazer.
Fiat- acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin).
Fuji- from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji.
Google- the name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.
Haier- Chinese ? "sea" and ? (a transliteration character; also means "you" in Literary Chinese)
HP- Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Hitachi- old place name, literally "sunrise"
Honda- from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda
Honeywell- from the name of Mark Honeywell founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in 1963.
Hotmail- Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" - the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)
HSBC- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
Hyundai- connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.
IBM- named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.
ICL- abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK's largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.
IKON - copier company name derived from I Know One Name.
Intel- Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise" -- not a good choice for an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else. Then, using initial syllables from INTegrated ELectronics, Noyce and Moore came up with Intel. To avoid potential conflicts with other companies of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)
Interland - a web hosting provider formally known as Micron Computer, Inc. which was named either after InternetLandor the combination of the largest acqusition it performed, Interliant with the word Land.
Kawasaki- from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki
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.
Konica- it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.
Korg - Formed from the surnames of the founders, Tsutomu Katoh and Tadashi Osanai, combined with the letters "rg" from the word organ.
LG- combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar. (In Mexicopublicists explained the name change to the public as an abbreviation to LÃnea Goldstar Spanish for Goldstar Line)
L'Oréal- In 1907, Eugène Schueller, a young French chemist, developed an innovative hair-color formula. He called his improved hair dye Auréole.
Lotus Software- Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Lucent Technologies- a spin-off from AT&T, it was named Lucent (meaning "luminous" or "glowing with light") because "light as a metaphor for visionary thinking reflected the company's operating and guiding business philosophy," according to the Landor Associates staff who chose the name. Source: Design Management Journal 8:1 (Winter 1997).
Lycos- from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.
Mazda Motor- from the company's first president, Jujiro Matsuda . In Japanese, no syllables are ever stressed and some inner syllables are virtually skipped. Thus, Matsuda is pronounced "Matsda". To make the name fly better outside of Japan, the spelling was changed to Mazda.
McDonald's- from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald 's restaurant in 1940.
Mercedes- This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.
MGM- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.
Micron- computer memory producer named after the microscopic parts of its products. The official name was Micron Computer, Inc. Since, the company has become Interland, a web hosting provider, after selling/spinning off its RAM division and closing down its computer division, licensing the name. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta.
Microsoft- coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.
midPhase- the post-dotcom era gave using the .com in a companies official name untrendy. A new dotcom company may be named traditionally, in midPhase's case it was named midPhase Services, Inc., the midPhase stands for Middle Phase, or middle of the road.
Mitsubishi- The name Mitsubishi (??) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means water chestnut, and from here rhombus, which is reflected in the company's logo.
Motorola- Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the " ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.
Mozilla Foundation- from the name of the web-browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen , founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.
MRF- Madras Rubber Factory, founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946. He started with a toy balloon-manufacturing unit at Tiruvottiyur, Chennai (then called Madras). In 1952, he began manufacturing tread-rubber, and in 1961, tyres.
Nero - Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome.
Netscape- named by first marketing employee Greg Sands, in a panic when the Universityof Illinoisthreatened to sue the new company for its original name, Mosaic. Netscape then paid Landor $50,000 to design a logo.
Nike- named for the Greek goddess of victory.
Nikon - the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".
Nissan- the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".
Nokia- started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.
Nortel - The Nortel Networks name came from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.
Novartis- after the Latin _expression "novae artes" which means something like "new skills".
Oracle - Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Technology Inc, to the name of the product.
Pepsi- Pepsi derives its name from (treatment of) dyspepsia, an intestinal ailment.
Philips - Royal Philips Electronics was founded in 1891, by brothers Gerard (the engineer) and Anton (the entrepreneur) Philips .
Qantas- From its original name, Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services.
Red Hat- Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as 'that guy in the red hat'. He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.
Reebok- another spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.
SAAB- founded in 1937 in Swedenas "Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget" (Swedish Aeroplane Company) abbreviated SAAB.
Samsonite- Samsonite was launched as a brand in 1941, receiving its name from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.
Samsung- meaning three stars in Korean.
Sanyo- The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is "??" (literally, "Three Oceans")
SAP- "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formerly "SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung" (German for "System analysis and program development"), formed by 4 ex- IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.
SEGA- "Service Games of Japan" (SeGa) Founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japanfor use on American military bases.
Sharp- Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.
Shell- Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already successfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.
Siemens - founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.
Sprint- from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. Back in the day, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.
Sun Microsystems- its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at StanfordUniversity, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They didn't.
Suzuki- from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki
Tesco- Founder Jack Cohen, who from 1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word "TESCO".
Toshiba- was founded by the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).
Toyota- from the founder's name Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.
Unisys- made-up name for the company that resulted from the combination of two old mainframe computer companies, Burroughs and Sperry [Sperry Univac/Sperry Rand]. It "united" two incompatible ranges. Unisys was briefly the world's second-largest computer company, after IBM.
Verizon- A portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.
Vodafone- is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Its name is made up of VOice, DAta, TeleFONE. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on the 1 January 1985.
Volvo- From the Latin word "volvo", which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.
Xerox- The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.
Yahoo!- a "backronym" for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos
(Source: An Email...Friends say its in wikipedia too)
posted by Teja @ 8:30 AM
272 Comments:
I would like to add the origin of MATROX, a company designing video cards.
It comes from the last names of its founders: Branko MATtic and Lorne TROttier. They kept only one 't' and put an 'x' at the end, supposedly because it was popular at the time. (e.g. Xerox, Unix, etc.)
I heard an interview with the guy who founded Zappos.com.
They made up the name but liked it because it sounded like Zapatos which is Spanish for shoes.
I'm sure they don't want us thinking about it, but Coca-Cola was originally made from cocaine, not directly from coca leaves.
Very interesting...That changes the way I think of some of these names. Very cool.
Yea, your Interland one is way off...
First, Interland was around before Micron purchased them and took the name.
Second, Interland purchased the web hosting divison of Interliant in 2001... and Interland was around way before then (as far back as 1998 as I can remember)
Finally, Interland stands for "Internet" and "Land"... as giving individuals their own "slice" of land on the internet.
Want to add a good one:
MCI - Microwave Computing International
A funny one is the 3d puzzles maker Wrebbit: It's a company from Quebec that when the founder tried to sell his idea to big game makers like Hasbro he got refused and he overheard a really unpleasant comment like "a Frenchfrog idea" so he turned around and created Wrebbit (telling everyone "hey, it's a Frenchfrog idea, and it actually works, suckers!") with a frog as the mascot/logo.
Here is another: Anilam (CNC control company) Name of the founder spelled backwards.
Another one -
Garmin - From the names of the founders, Gary and Ming.
Nikon is named so because their original product was a knock-off of the Zeiss Ikon and they wanted to capitalize on the similarity of the name.
Actually Nissan was first Datsun, after the founder.
Hi, I've got a feeling that Monsanto was named after the wife (possibly Brazillian) of one of the founders, who met at a meeting of the Society of Chemial Indsustry.
How about KYOCERA.
From their web site....
"The success story of KYOCERA (Kyoto Ceramics) started in the year 1959 in Kyoto, Japan. Here the then 27 year old engineer Kazuo Inamori founded the company which would one day become one of the leading manufacturers of ceramic materials."
Xansa (the software company) - `The name is easy to say [!] and read in all major market places and has clear phonetic links with ‘answer.’ The other inspiration has been the Sanskrit word ‘sanskar’ which, among many meanings, also refers to culture and values which are internalized from past experience and determine future action.’
I thought that "Google" came from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", in which he mentions the "Googleplex" to be one of the universes great information supercomputers.
(HGTTG is where the name of the famous "Trillian" Chat application came from as well)
I've read this before. What is the original source of this information?
for what it's belatedly worth, beenz.com was named because the company originally hoped to analyse the information gleaned from "beenz" served from millions of pages literally tracking "where you've been" - geddit?
I got to hear James Duncan Davidson speak at my local Denver Java User Group and he said the name of the Jakarta project came from the room they were meeting in. He picked Tomcat as the name for the server because he imagined a Tomcat on the O'Reilly book.
SEGA was originally SEaside GAmes, if I recall.
Commodore? Amiga? Atari?
Did you do research on these names, or just take guesses? Apache didn't come from the tribe, it came from the fact that NCSA httpd founder left and it was the server was being kept together by patches (A patchy server). Here is the link, http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html
Interesting, but the Micron entry is totally wrong. It's a little confusing, so I'm not surprised.
Micron Computers/Micron PC was started as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Micron Technology.
Micron Technology also formed Micron Internet Services to provide dial-up services in the Boise area. I was hired at MIS while it was still part of Micron.
Later, Micron Internet Services was acquired by and made a wholly-owned subsidiary of Micron Computers. Shortly after, Micron Computers changed it's name to MicronPC.
A few months later, I moved to Altanta. Within a year, Micron Internet Services merged with a national Webhosting company called HostPro. Shortly after that, HostPro merged with Interland, based in Atlanta. The dial-up/dsl customers were moved to EarthLink, leaving only the web hosting business. It was a little ironic because Interland was one of my original job offerings after leaving MIS.
MicronPC was eventually sold to a holding company and continued to operate as MicronPC. Later, it was acquired by Hyperspace Communications and now operates as MPC.
Back in the day, Micron computers rocked. There was a time when it could have overtaken Dell. Unfortunately, that time has come and gone. I'm actually surprised they are still operating.
Crucial is the retail/consumer face of Micron Technology.
If Reebok comes from african rhebok, then the next step would be the german Rehbock, cause Germany colonized parts of africa
Mr funk...get with it. Cocaine comes from Coca leaves. Coke is still made from coca leaves, but they just happen to be made from the leaves after the cocaine has been removed, basically called spent leaves.
Do some research before spreading rumors.
I've read in a magazine that Nintendo means something like "Let heaven to decide"
Maybe any Japanese reader can correct me if this is wrong.
So, how did BASF get its name?
Mitsubishi actually means "three rhombus" (rombii?) - nothing about water chestnuts.
Another one, where I once worked, S1 corp. (NASDAQ:SONE)
Acronym (half-ass one) for Security First.
Company started life claiming to be the world's first internet-only bank with one branch, which was the only branch that the initial owner Chip Mahan has acquired for the sole purpose of converting it to an internet bank from somewhere in the midwest and relocated to Atlanta, and the branch was located at the entrance floor of the HQ building, Lennox Towers in Atlanta GA. The bank was named Security First Network Bank or as known in the cyberspace, sfnb.com (yours truly is one of the pioneering clients of this bank at the time).
Later in life, as every bank audit rolled thru, the development of the software, which was the core business, had to be stopped according to the regulations. So Chip decided to sell the bank to Royal Bank of Canada which then renamed the bank to RBC Centura. The company needed a new name as the sfnb.com was also sold to RBC. They paid some company in the order of millions of dollars to design the logo and name the company to S1.
nintendo 任天堂 is made up of three characters which nominally mean
"responsibility/in charge",
"heaven" and
"magnificently/lordly"
so yes, "Let heaven decide" or "In the hands of the Gods" could be acceptable translations.
Sometimes names don't carry significance in their literal meaning in Japanese.
IBM- Is actually the rotation of 'HAL' ('H'>'I', 'A'>'B', 'L'>'M'), the worlds first computer (from Harvard).
Another well known porn startup Betichod is named after the terms "Beti" - which means daughter in persian and "chod" which means to have sex with or fuck.
Some more:
Chootiya LLC - "Choot" for Vagina
Gandoo Inc - "Gand" (persian for ass) + "do" -- as in "do it man, do it!"
Laurndu Inc: Laurndu - chinese for "hi, your dick is huge"
Haramkhor: Made up for 4 japanese symbols each standing for "madarchod timepass mat karo"
Apache *was* named for 'patch' actually, at least that was the in-joke that made the name palatable.
Randy bought into the Apache american-indian thing when his wife dropped the fab rainbow feather for the logo. I'm not really sure any of the AG really gave a damn what it was called - it was just nice to have something that did the job without melting your server.
Good times. AW
BASF stands for Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (Anilin and Soda Factory of Baden)
Also, the Canadian company Mitel which makes phone switches, supposedly stands for the founders' original business, MIkes and TErry's Lawnmovers (could be an urban legend though).
IBM- Is actually the rotation of 'HAL' ('H'>'I', 'A'>'B', 'L'>'M'), the worlds first computer (from Harvard). >>
IBM started in 1888. They had computers back then?
Unisys is an acronym that stands for United Information Systems. You can see that at http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/UNISYS
Nissan: Previously known as Datsun
but don't know the meaning or how it got its name
I would have thought Verizon was the opposite axis of horizon (the Vertical vs. the Horizontal)... like the Verizontical... is that a word?
You are mistaken about the Apple Logo. Here's the story according to the Apple Museum:
Quote:
__________________________
The first Apple logo was designed by Ron Wayne, co-founder of Apple Computer. It was rather a picture than a logo. It showed Sir Isaac Newton sitting beneath the famous Apple tree thinking about gravity.
It was only used for the Apple I. Steve Jobs felt that it was too intellectual and it was almost impossible to put on computers as one could only recognize the details of the drawing when it was large enough.
Therefore, in 1977 Jobs asked the art designer Rob Janoff to design the new Apple logo. The new logo had a simple shape of an Apple, bitten into, with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. The bite symbolized knowlegde (in the bible the apple was the fruit of the tree of knowledge) and the bite could also be pronounced "byte", a reference to computer technology.
When Jean Louis Gassée was asked about his thoughts to the Apple logo he answered: "One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn't dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy."
In 1997, Steve Jobs decided to drop the multi-colored Apple logo and replace it by a solid-colored logo. The first Apple computers to feature the new logo were the new PowerBook G3s in 1998 (although they still featured both types of logos).
_____________________________
He's mistaken about the Bible calling the Apple the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil though. It doesn't actually say what kind of fruit it is, but traditionally, people called it an apple. (As in "Adam's apple")
Mazda was not named after the founder.
It was named after Ahura Mazda, the benevolent god of Zoroastrianism. Seriously.
The MCI definition above is wrong.
MCI is "Microwave Communications, Inc."
They originally used microwave towers to circumvent the (then monopoly) AT&T long-distance network.
In support of the Zoroastrian god comment:
http://www.fordmotorcompany.co.za/corporate/history/mazda.asp
"This mark became registered trademark for Mazda when prodution commenced on our 8-wheel trucks. The name "Mazda" representes a combination of "Ahura-Mazda", the name of an ancient god and Mr. Jyujiro, founder of the Mazda Corporation."
Esso, actually comes From
Standard Oil: Es-O --> Esso....
Sunoco is a shorter version of Sun Oil Company.
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Nice stuff, and I should know -- I wrote some of it.
What seems to be strangely missing is any acknowledgement of the fact that the content has been ripped off from Wikipedia....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies
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LOL, let's clear this one up. HAL is a rotation of IBM, not the other way around. HAL was the machine in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have no idea whether HAL was Arthur C. Clarke's or Stanley Kubrik's idea, because I never read the book.
>>IBM- Is actually the rotation of 'HAL' ('H'>'I', 'A'>'B', 'L'>'M'), the worlds first computer (from Harvard).
What? No, you're an idiot.
HAL, the computer from 2001 is a play on IBM. The world's first programmable computer is ENIAC. The Harvard Mark I is not at all the same thing.
i heard that Hooter's name came from the fact that the founder really like hooters.
...particularly the evil-looking short-eared owl. or perhaps he just liked breasts.
of course i'm being retarded.
I thought Apple Computers were named after the poisoned Apple Alan Turin (the father of computing) used to kill himself, which is why there is a single bite out of the logo...
BP - British Petroleum
The old joke is that BP stands for
Benzine 'eh Pars (In Farsi)
Translated: Benzine of Pars
Benzine is the Farsi word used by Iranians to mean Petroleum.
Pars is another term for Persia which is better known as Iran.
So: Benzine of Persia
Why? Because the company that grew to become BP was originally the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Iranian_Oil_Company
Thank you Jack. I knew I had read this somewhere before.
Day2Day, please cite your sources next time.
> Daewoo- the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.
Actualli Dae Woo means Big TREE. That's the meaning of the logo either, a big tree.
BASF, Big Ass Suck Fest
The IBM -> HAL myth is just that: A coincidence. Both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Cubrik denies that it's anything but.
Harpo, Oprah's production company, is her name spelled backwards.
Maybelline cosmetics got its name from the founder's sister, Mabel, and Vaseline. Their first mascara was made from a combination of coal dust and Vaseline brand petroleum jelly.
Sorry that would be Kubrick. Anyhow, the relevant part would be this from the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000):
"Some versions state that the name HAL was derived by a one letter shift (see Caesar cipher) from the name IBM, although this has been denied by both Arthur C. Clarke and his fictional character Dr. Chandra, who states that "by now, any idiot should know that HAL stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic" (2010)."
LEGO comes from danish "Leg Godt"(play well) afterwards, the founder found out that it also means "I put together" in latin
"The IBM -> HAL myth is just that: A coincidence. Both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Cubrik denies that it's anything but."
Hmmm, a VERY strange coincidence then.... Maybe their tought were manipulated without their knowledge by some superior, alien beings :)
Kiltak
[Geeks Are Sexy] Tech. News
Coca-Cola was Created by a dentist, who used Cocain among other various ingrediants to calm his customers when they were having a tooth removed or something equally painfull.
The name IKEA was formed from IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up.
3M - Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
[quote]If Reebok comes from african rhebok, then the next step would be the german Rehbock, cause Germany colonized parts of africa[/quote]
No, it's origins are Dutch where reebok is spelled as reebok. The Dutch, not the Germans were a large presence in South Africa.
Impressive stuff... would have taken quite an effor to gather all this info.
Keep it up!
Five more examples from Germany:
- "Sinalco" (a soft drink): from "SINe ALCOhol"; Latin for "without alcohol";
- "Eduscho" (Coffee): founder of the company was EDUard SCHOpf;
- "Hanuta" (candy): HAselNUssTAfel (hazelnut bar);
- "Haribo" (manufacturer of sweets): HAns RIegel BOnn;
- "Hertie" (department store): founder HERmann TIEtz.
Oh, one more from Italy:
"Q8" (gas stations) - guess where the stuff comes from.
Funny what happens if you rake your brain - here’s one more:
"AUDI" (car manufacturer): in the beginning there was a company called "Horch" (one of the founder’s name was August Horch which incidentally also means "listen!") - as he left in 191o to open up his own company this word simply was translated to Latin "Audi".
The programming language Delphi from Borland.
When putting the finishing touches on a true TurboPascal follower for Windows, the ability to talk to the Oracle database system was added as a major selling point.
The compiler was thus jokingly named "Delphi" internally - if you want to talk to the Oracle, you go to Delphi... the name stuck.
In fact, Horch was forced to do so, because when he left his old company, the brand "Horch" belonged to the company - not him.
His son was it, who asked him, if it wasn't more correct to call his family "audi" (he was pretty keen in learning latin).
By the way, BASF=Beer And Sex Forever! This came straight fron the people working there!
By the way, BASF=Beer And Sex Forever! This came straight from
the people working there!
"The name IKEA was formed from IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up."
I saw an documentary on tv about Ingvar and that program stated that the two last letters are Eget Arbete (hard to translate, sorry)
Q8 Oil company comes from it's orriginating country: Kuwait
In 1953, the electronics company we now know as Sony was called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, an outfit whose primary business was the manufacture and sale of tape recorders and magnetic tape. When Akio Morita (later head of Sony America) returned from his first trip to the United States that year, he realized that the company needed a name that was recognizable (and pronounceable) outside of Japan. "Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo" was an unwieldy name and had no particular meaning to the rest of the world; its translation, "Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company," wasn't much better, and its three-letter abbreviation (TTK) had already been claimed by the Japanese national telephone company.
The inspiration for the new company name came from a brand of tape TTK had been marketing since 1950: Soni-tape. The "Soni" in "Soni-tape" was derived from the Latin sonus ("sound"), and Morita created Sony from a combination of sonus and the English phrase sonny boy, which "conveyed to him the youthful energy and irreverence he wanted at the heart of the company." (Because "o" is pronounced in Japanese with a long vowel sound, the connection between "Sony" and "sonny" is not apparent to English speakers.)
The name Sony was first used as a trademark on the company's TR-55 transistor radio in 1955, and Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo officially changed its name to the Sony Corporation in 1958. The only connection between Sony and the Rockefellers is that Sony head Akio Morita and David Rockefeller both served on the Trilateral Commission beginning in 1973.
Mazda was a spin off of Toyo Kogyo a major ship-builder/heavy industries company in Japan. It was named for the startup car companies chairman Matsuda not easy to say for Americans thus, Mazda. Old Mazda's said Toyo Kogyo on the engine block. Toyo Kogyo was an abbreviation for Toyo (Asian) Heavy Industries.
Datsun was an American marketing name to avoid anti-Japanese feelings regarding Nippon (Japan). They were always Nissan in Japan. And the original explanation of Nissan stands.
Mitsubishi is from mitsu-three and hishi-diamondshape. When combining mitsu and hishi in Japanese the h becomes a b thus Mitsubishi. A joint operation between Chrysler and Mitsubishi was called Diamond-Star because of Chrysler's badge, the 5-pointed star and Mitsubishi's diamond. Chestnut?
Ishibashi literally translated is "stone" and the Japanese combined form for hashi "bridge" but, Bridgestone may fit the meaning better and sounds better regarding tires, "Stonebridge" tires, those sound heavy!
Really a cool list. Enjoyed it.
"Apple" couldn't have something to do with the apple that was taken from the Tree of Knowledge could it?
If I had a company I'd name it "Boner"
I believe Atari is the Japanese word which roughly means, "you are about to be overwhelmed" (or conquered). How Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari) decided to use a Japanese word I have no idea.
Too bad Jack Tramiel and his sons completely destroyed the company when they took it over.
WOW !!great work compling all the stuff !!
Raytheon means "light of the gods." Maker of famed missiles such as the Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder, and Tomahawk, and leader in radar systems and advanced electronics.
DMA Design - now Rockstar North - creators of Lemmings and GTA. One of my favourites - Doesn't Mean Anything.
someone previously noted how they thought "Google" had come from "Hitchhiker's Guide," which might not necessarily be correct. However, the computer translation program "BABELFISH?" Of course. When in doubt, just stick your CPU directly into your ear.
The tale goes that Microsoft's founder Bill Gates one night was served by a hooker. The next morning he asked her how it was, when she replied -"Now I know why you call your company MicroSoft"...
In addition to the comment previously given by "anonymous" as copied below, I can explain that "Eget Arbete" means "(my) own work " or "(my) own job"...
"The name IKEA was formed from IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up."
I saw an documentary on tv about Ingvar and that program stated that the two last letters are Eget Arbete (hard to translate, sorry)
Volvo in Latin means "I roll".
Let's add ASICS which stands for “Anima Sana in Corpore Sano”, a Latin phrase expressing the ancient ideal of a sound mind in a sound body.
I believe Atari was the name of a move in the game Go.
windows...
Here is an interesting one. The Company's name is XORA. See www.xora.com. They came up with that name because the founders were all eX ORAcle employees...
I know a lady in the Chicago area who is a tour operator who takes Seniors on bus tours. Her name is Linda King, and her company is called King of the Road. Cool, huh?
3com- compatibility, communications, and computing. Three coms.
It's not a company, bu one of my favorite acronyms is TWAIN, a standard protocol for imaging devices that actually stands for "Technology Without An Interesting Name."
Cannondale- the manufactuerer of higher end bicycles got their name when the founder, Joe Montgomery was searching for investors in the 1970's. While at a train station to New York City, he called a potential investor on the pay phone. The investor asked what his company was called. Joe, supposedly never thought about the name and looked up and saw a sign "Cannondale, CT train station."
Hence the name, Cannondale, after a nice little town in Connecticut.
ARCO - Atlantic Richfield Company
McDonald's wasn't named after the McDonlad brothers. It was created by Ray Kroc, who named it McDonald's because he thought it sounded like a good name.
RCN, a cable company based in New Jersey and serving the DC to Boston corridor (and some of California) currently tells people their name is from Residential Cable Network. The name was originally from Revolutionary Cable Network though, and their marketing approach was full of Soviet references and included slogans about how all empires crumble, referring to past cable TV monopolies.
To the anon above: Mc Donalds *was* named after the brothers. Ray Kroc recognised the potential of the business and basically screwed them out of the game. So while the popularity of the "restraunt" is due to Kroc the original inception (including the drive-thru service and one button production line) was down to the original brothers.
Read "Fast Food Nation" for more information and history.... a truely great book.