What’s In The Name!

What’s In The Name!

So you know why is Google called Google and not googol (from which it was originated) and how was Accenture named, but do you know what’s Mercedes named after? Or what’s that symbol in the logo of Zynga? And why is the Linux called Red Hat Linux?

Read ahead to learn how these companies arrived at their names today, it is pretty exciting!

7-Eleven – The famous Convenience stores; renamed from "U-Tote'm" in 1946 to reflect their newly extended hours, from 7:00 am until 11:00 pm. I sure didn’t know that!

Adidas – No it isn’t All Day I Dream About Sports. Alas! I liked it that way though. It actually is originated from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Bridgestone – This one always puzzled me. I’m glad to have found the connection after all. It is named after the founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (石橋) means "stone bridge", or "bridge of stone", and hence the name.

Coca-Cola – One of the biggest brand, stuck to its roots. It 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.

eBay – eBay one of the most sought out websites by Pierre Omidyar, who had created this Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. "Echo Bay" did not refer to the town in Nevada, "It just sounded cool", Omidyar 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

IKEA – The furniture giant came up its with names as 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. Woah! That was some thought process I must say.

Kodak – No it isn’t the sound of the shutter of the camera. Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a favorite 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.

Lenovo Group – It is a portmanteau of "Le-" (from former name Legend) and "novo", pseudo-Latin for "new". This Chinese company took over IBM's PC division.

 Mercedes – It came from the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who distributed cars of the early Daimler company around 1900. Now we know why is it such a beauty!

Mitsubishi – the name Mitsubishi (三菱) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means diamond (the shape). Hence, the three diamond logo.

Oracle – If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you! This one is one of my favorites. Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA. The code name for the project was Oracle. The project was designed to use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project was eventually terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Software Inc., to the name of the product.

Reebok – Reebok is an alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope. I’m yet to figure out the idea behind the logo though.

Red Hat – The company founder Marc Ewing while at college, was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems and he was referred to as that guy in the red hat. By the time he wrote the manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux he had lost the cap, so the manual included an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found. Now that’s touchy, isn’t it?

Volvo – It comes from the Latin word Volvo, which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF. Now that must a really proud ball bearing today.

Zynga – And finally one of the very inexplicable of names. Zynga was named after founder Mark Pincus's American bulldog, Zinga. So now we know what the logo stands for.

_{Source (Info) : Wikipedia}