“What’s in a name,” was a line by Shakespeare that could be interpreted as the name of something that should not matter as much as the quality. Shakespeare used a rose to explain it when he said that even if the flower had been called something else, it would smell just as sweet if it had been named differently. However, the modern answer to the Shakespearean question would be a lot of brainstorming, a few hits and misses, and some rebranding until finally figuring out the perfect brand name. In this article, we decided to highlight the amazing stories behind some of the world’s famous brand names.
The Amazing Stories Behind Some Of The World’s Famous Brand Names
Adidas
Athletic wear brands had been competing to find out who could make it to one of the famous names in sports and for Hollywood to speak for their brands. However, before these athletic wear names could make it to the renowned list, they had to come up with the right name to represent their products. The meaning behind Adidas had often been misunderstood because many thought that the letters meant “All Day I Dream About Sports.” Adidas was derived from its founder, Adolf Dassler (Adi + Das).
Adidas
7-Eleven
7-Eleven was widely known because of Slurpee that we craved for after a hot day. The name became officially connected to its famous drink to the point that July 7 became Free Slurpee Day. 7-Eleven’s brand name meant something different. It was initially called Tote’m Stores in 1927, but its owners decided to change the name after 20 years. They chose the name because the store was open from 7 am to 11 pm. And while it made, the brand decided to keep its name even though they were now open 24 hours.
7 Eleven
Amazon
Jeff Bezos was internationally known for being a tech genius, but the story behind Amazon’s original name proved the smartest people could get it wrong. Jeff Bezos thought of naming the world’s largest online bookstore as Cadabra, coming from the spell Abracadabra. But he realized that there was something wrong with the name when his lawyer thought that the company’s name was Cadaver. That was enough for him to fix the name by changing it to Amazon. The tech genius got the name after the largest river to represent his vast ambitions.
Amazon
AOL
Hearing AOL would have us listen to an imaginary ring and the words, “You’ve got mail!” would promptly pop into our brain. The web portal was essential during the ’90s, and the company’s brand name had been tweaked and perfected as time passed. AOL’s original name was Quantum Computer Services, but people thought it contained too many words. In 1991, they renamed the company to America Online, which had slightly fewer words. By 2006, the company finally learned the beauty of brevity of the nickname they had been given and officially changed to AOL.
AOL
Apple
Steve Jobs was one of the internationally known entrepreneurs and inventors but was a huge Beatles fan like many of us. It was why people thought that Apple was derived from the Beatles’ record label, Apple Records. However, it was not the case, and the story began when he was picking apples at an orchard. The idea of calling the company as Apple came to mind, and he called his co-founder Steve Wozniak to pitch his idea. Steve almost rejected the suggestion because the co-founder thought that it sounded like the Beatles record label.
Apple
Best Buy
Best Buy was famous for the lines stationed outside the store every Black Friday, and yet, the story behind the brand’s name was even more insane. It used to focus on selling stereo and was called Sound of Music in 1996, but the store did not do well. Being hit by a tornado made things worse and had been forced to host a tornado sale to sell some of their items that had been damaged by the calamity. The advertisements for the sale had been called the “best buys” we could find.
Best Buy
Blackberry
We all knew at least one person from a few years ago who always held their BlackBerry phone between their hands. This person would be typically seen furiously typing to send their latest BBM or email. Anyone who held these phones seemed to be busy all the time. It was why it made sense that the original name for the phone was Research in Motion. However, they changed the name to Blackberry because they thought that the little keys on the phone looked like tiny bumps of the blackberry fruit.
Blackberry
eBay
It might be rare, but there were times when fake news became true. It was what happened to the auction website known as eBay. In 1995, eBay used to be an umbrella company known as AuctionWeb and owned four sites. It had shipping, travel, and about the Ebola virus. And yet, eBay became something different. AuctionWeb started to become famous, and the news media began to report about it. The media got the name incorrectly and called AuctionWeb by the name of eBay, its parent company. AuctionWeb officially changed to eBay in 1997.
EBay
Ikea
Most of us know the feeling of being overwhelmed when roaming through IKEA as the store was a staple when moving to a new house. Numerous people tried building their IKEA furniture but creating a brand name was not as easy. The story behind IKEA’s name was simple. It was founded by Ingvar Kamprad when he was 17 and was inspired by taking pieces of his life. I and K were the first letters of his first and last name. The letter E came from his childhood farm, Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd was his hometown.
Ikea
Mark Zuckerberg made the right choice to drop out of Harvard University to start his social media company. And as he cut his college years short, Mark Zuckerberg also cut the name of his company short. The founder initially named his company The Facebook and was meant to connect the Harvard University students. As the company grew, the company name did not because Mark Zuckerberg decided to drop the word The and simply went with Facebook. We tried searching for thefacebook.com, and the site automatically redirected us to the standard facebook.com
The Gap
Parents always had difficulty understanding their teenage kids. As many parents decided to bear with the challenging years, some chose to name an entire store after them. A perfect example of this would be The Gap, and it was a clothing store that started to sell jeans and vinyl records mainly. The owners Donald and Doris Fishers chose to focus on teenagers and young adults and chose the name to signify the gap between teenagers and their parents. The Gap was not a regular store, and it was a cool store.
The Gap
Google came up with numerous amazing ideas that made things easier for everyone. However, we could not say the same about their choice of names because they initially intended to name their company as Backrub. For those who were skeptical, feel free to search it. Thankfully, the owners realized that it was not the best name to represent the company and decided to go for Googol. It was the name of the number 1 that was followed by 100 zeros. The developers misspelled the name Googol to be Google.
Lego
Legos were famous for the colorful plastic building blocks and the iconic yellow headpieces that presented the characters. It was shocking to find out that Lego did not start as a plastic building block brand. It began as a wooden block company founded by a Danish carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen. The name came from his Danish history from a saying “Leg Godt”,” that meant “Play Well.” The name was stuck, but the blocks significantly changed. It was so famous that a movie had been based on the popular children’s toy.
Lego
Pepsi
Pepsi had been ingrained in American culture that we could hear Britney Spears singing all the catchy tunes from her advertisements with the brand. Pepsi was deemed to be America’s drink and could be seen in barbeques, birthday parties, or only during lunch. There was a story behind the name, and before it had been called Pepsi, it was known as Brad’s Drink. It referred to the pharmacist named Caleb Bradham, and he was the creator of Pepsi in North Carolina last 1983. It was named after him, but it soon became everyone’s drink.
Pepsi
Nike
The Nike shoe and clothing brand was famous because of the Nike swoosh and was now a staple in athletic wear. The name of the brand already packed a big punch, but the celebrities and athletes sponsored by the brand packed a bigger one. Most of us did not know, but it was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports. However, Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese shoemaker, wanted to name the sports brand after Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. The brand surely took off and made the $1,200 initial investment worth it.
Nike
PayPal
PayPal made it simple for users to make quick and easy online payments since it had been founded in 1998. However, thinking up a name for their new company was not as quick and easy. The company initially went by the name Confinity that combined the words confidence and infinity, and it was initially advertised as a program exclusive for Palm Pilots that dealt with solving complicated online codes. After a year, Confinity began to allow the users to make online payments with each other and was renamed PayPal.
PayPal
Reebok
Rebook experienced a reboot and had famous personalities like Ariane Grande, Gal Gadot, and Gigi Hadid to sign as brand ambassadors for the shoe company. The Reebok classics were now spotted in numerous places as celebrities wore them. However, the company had initially been named J.W. Foster and Sons. It seemed like a small local shoe, and it was why they began to think of a new brand name. The founder’s grandson found a book about South African animals and saw a Grey Rhebok, and antelope. The shoe company ran with the name.
Reebok
Samsung
The owner of Samsung had significant plans for the new brand and wanted to have the name inspired by his sky-high ambitions as he looked up towards the stars. Samsung had initially been pitched as a trading company before it switched to the electronics field after 20 years. Lee Byung-Chul, the owner, chose Samsung because it meant Three Stars in Korean. The number 3 was deemed to be a lucky number in Korea, and he combined it with his aspirations for the company to last as long as the stars.
Samsung
Six Flags
There had been instances when company names started from one idea before turning into something different. There were times when the owners of the company decided to shorten the name because it contained too many words. Thankfully, it was the case for Six Flags Amusement Park as it was part of the second group. The initial Six Flags was named Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington and was named after the actual location of the first park. Luckily, they shortened the name once they started to operate throughout the country.
Six Flags
Skype
We should thank Skype each time we went on video calls with a friend or relative or have been interviewed via video conference. We should still be grateful even though we were not explicitly using Skype because it was the first company to find an effective way to have video calls. Skype changed everything, including their name. It was initially called sky peer-to-peer but decided to stop using the name. They switched to Skyper, but it had already been taken, and not willing to acknowledge defeat, they went with Skype.
Skype
Starbucks
We probably had multiple experiences with the Starbucks barista where they spelled our names wrong on the cup of our coffee. But we also found out that the coffee shop also got its name because of misspelling the name of a book character. The naming process for the brand started with the guidelines of starting with ST. One of the founders was reading Moby Dick and came across the character, Starbuck. Gordon Bowker pitched the name, but there had been an additional s at the end.
Starbucks
Subway
If we did not succeed on our first try to give our company a name, then try again. And if it still did not work, just keep on trying. It was exactly what went through with Subway, one of America’s favorite sandwich stores. Dr Peter Buck started serving sandwiches in Bridgeport, Connecticut and named his restaurant as Pete’s Super Submarine. The founder changed the name to Doctor’s Associate Inc., as an ode to his doctorate. However, it was clear that he needed to rebrand and along came Subway.
Subway
Toyota
There were times when names slightly changed that people wondered whether they bothered to rebrand. The best example would be Toyota, a Japanese auto manufacturer. It was initially called Toyoda named after Kiichiro Toyoda, its founder. However, the company staff thought that Toyota was a better name because it could be written in eight strokes in Japanese. It matched with Japan’s lucky number, eight. The company decided to put the idea to action and asked the customers to weigh in on the name and design. Toyota had been chosen after thousands of submissions.
Toyota
Yahoo!
Before Yahoo! became a search engine and a new entity, it was merely an idea that two PhD students had as they studied at Stanford University. And even though David Filo and Jerry Yang had a fantastic idea, they could not think of an excellent name for it. It was initially named Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web, and even though they changed the name to something just as long, it still came with an acronym. It was named Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, or just Yahoo.
Yahoo!
It was unfortunate that the decision to find the name for Twitter could not be summarized into 140 characters. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, had to use a few tweets to explain the company’s name. The intention was for Twitter to be an SMS texting-based service and told that the meaning of the name “came from a dictionary: short inconsequential bursts of information; chirps from birds.” They chose to name it twttr, but the code was already taken. They placed the vowels back and said, “thus lost our web 2.0 cool.”
