People are too often taken by surprise by a name’s true meaning, and what went behind its creation. When it comes to the biggest brands on Earth, one may wonder just why they were called things like “Pepsi” or “eBay.” Sometimes there are incredible stories behind these brand names, and sometimes they are just some person’s name. Regardless, brand names often take a long time to perfect. We want to tell you all about the most noteworthy companies in our world today.
The Incredible Brands
Adidas
It’s no mystery that athletic wear brands will always try their best to capture the attention of the leading icons in both Hollywood and sports. Incredibly, a brand such as Adidas took some time to come up with its household name title. Adidas is a name that is commonly falsely described, with many believing that it stood for “All Day I Dream About Sports.” Its meaning is actually a lot simpler, with “Adi” and “Das” taken from the creator’s name, Adolf Dassler.
Adidas
7-Eleven
There are few places on Earth where people will flock to more for a refreshing Slurpee than 7-Eleven, with the icy beverage being believed to be the foundation for this brand’s name as “Free Slurpee Day” falls on July 7. In 1927, the company was called Tote’m Stores, but two decades later, its leadership rebranded. 7-Eleven actually refers to its universal opening hours, which were from 07h00 to 23h00. Today, most 7-Elevens are open 24/7.
7 Eleven
Amazon
While Amazon might be most people’s favorite place to do online shopping, few actually know the origin of its South American name. Jeff Bezos, the multi-billionaire behind the company, originally wanted to call his online shopping platform “Cadabra,” taken from Abracadabra. When Bezos’ lawyer misread the name as “Cadaver,” he knew that it was time for a change. He then landed on Amazon after likening his drive’s reach to the second-longest river in the world.
Amazon
AOL
Whenever a person of a certain age sees the AOL brand, they cannot help but remember the iconic “You’ve got mail!” notification. This cyber company dominated the 1990s with its internet services and was previously known as “Quantum Computer Services.” When consumer research revealed that people found this name too cumbersome, they renamed the business to “America Online” in 1991. They took this simplification a step further in 2006 when they rebranded as AOL.
AOL
Apple
Steve Jobs is regarded as one of the most unapproachably intelligent and intense icons of our time. While many believe that Jobs found inspiration in one of his favorite band’s record labels (The Beatles’ Apple Records), that is another urban legend. It was when Jobs was collecting apples in an orchard that he was struck with inspiration, immediately contacting his co-founder and confidant Steve Wozniak to share his brilliance. Ironically, Wozniak believed that people would mistake Steve’s natural influence as stealing from The Beatles’ record label.
Apple
Best Buy
Black Friday is a chaotic experience for any Best Buy experience, being a crazy stampede of crazed consumers every year. Just where Best Buy’s leadership got its name from is also an insane story. In 1996, Best Buy was formerly known as “Sound of Music,” whose primary sales were geared around stereos to mediocre success. Poor sales would be the least of the shop’s worries, however, as that year a terrible tornado swept through the area, destroying much of the building and wrecking much stock. Once the chaos had ended, they began selling their damaged goods as “best buys.”
Best Buy
Blackberry
BlackBerry was all the rage about a decade ago when it seemed like everyone had one of their phones. Everywhere you turned, people were glued to their BlackBerrys, addictively texting friends and business associates. One could also surf the web at an almost unlimited pace while still being active, which is why the original name BlackBerry went for was “Research in Motion.” This then led to the intelligent change of name to BlackBerry, as the tiny keys on the phone resembled the small nodes of a blackberry.
Blackberry
eBay
While we might be accustomed to dealing with fake news today, back in the day it was less of an issue, but not for eBay. AuctionWeb was the company that eBay was once a part of, possessing four other sites in 1995. Its services included travel, shipping, and Ebola virus resources. Incredibly, eBay would soon turn into a whole new entity. AuctionWeb quickly gained successful traction in the international business world and was soon reported on by international media. When AuctionWeb became a hot topic, news agencies falsely started calling it eBay which was just a part of the umbrella company. Its CEO eventually renamed AuctionWeb to eBay in 1997.
EBay
IKEA
Homeowners and IKEA go together like peanut butter and jelly. While their furniture may be simple enough to build, coming up with the original name was not. The brand name comes from Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s founder, who built the brand name from his personal life. The I and K are his first name and surname. The E is from Elmatryd, the name of the farm that he was raised on, and the A is from his hometown, called Agunnaryd.
IKEA
When Mark Zuckerberg decided to depart from Harvard to chase his dreams of establishing the ultimate social media business, he could have never dreamed that he would be on the verge of such unprecedented success. Originally a social platform for Harvard’s members, Facebook was initially called “The Facebook.” Upon achieving its global domination, the “The” was cut. Good thing too, as this a far niftier and accessible name. Good thinking, Mark!
The Gap
It seems like parents will consistently struggle to connect with their teenage children, and this disconnect is exactly what The Gap played upon with their brand name. “The Gap” refers to this disparity between teenage and adult values. The Gap originally began as a general store for vinyl records and jeans, but when its owners realized that there was a “gap” in the market for teenager-focused fashion stores, they quickly capitalized.
The Gap
The people behind our main source of research and internet browsing, in general, had a completely different branding strategy before the one we associate it with today. It was first known as “Backrub.” If you don’t believe us, please feel free to Google it! They then decided that a more respectable name was in order, going for “Googol,” which is a figure “equivalent to ten raised to the power of a hundred (10100).” When an employee incorrectly typed the name out as “Google,” it turned out to be a happy mistake.
Lego
Everyone knows what Lego is, and there is a good chance that you played with the vibrant building blocks during your childhood. Before Lego began pumping out mounds of plastic pieces, a carpenter from Denmark handcrafted the blocks from wood called Ole Kirk Christiansen. He took the name from the Danish saying, “Leg Godt,” which translates to “Play Well.” Despite the materials changing, Lego has kept its sweet name. Not so sweet when you step on a Lego block barefoot, however.
Lego
Pepsi
Commonly accepted as the only contender to the Coca-Cola empire, Pepsi is also infamous for being its rival’s desperate nemesis. Still, Pepsi does dominate much of the United States’ sources for refreshment, being drunk at pool parties and work lunches alike. Prior to its current name, Pepsi was called “Brad’s Drink,” taken from its creator Caleb Bradham, who invented the fizzy drink in 1983 in North Carolina. While he may have named the drink after himself, everyone would soon come to know it as Pepsi.
Pepsi
Nike
You cannot talk about athletic wear and general sports performance without bringing Nike into the conversation. People across the world will instantly recognize its iconic tick symbol, as well as the top celebrities that the brand sponsors. Before being known as Nike, its name was “Blue Ribbon Sports.” It took a Japanese shoemaker named Onitsuka Tiger’s stroke of genius to rename it to Nike, taken from the goddess of victory in Ancient Greek mythology. He was only paid $1,200 for the title which would rock the world.
Nike
PayPal
Since its 1998 inception, PayPal has revolutionized countless people’s online transactions. At a click of a button, you can send and receive money safely and independently on the internet. The establishment of the company’s name was not as quick, however. Originally pursuing the title “Confinity,” which mixed the words infinity and confidence, this company began solely catering to Palm Pilot users toward helping them crunch complex coding. One year later, Confinity commenced permitting its customers the service of online payments, which quickly led to a rebranding as PayPal.
PayPal
Reebok
With headlining artists and actors like Ariana Grande and Gal Gadot behind it, Reebok has some of the most spectacular celebrities supporting it. You can see Reeboks on the feet of the most influential individuals alive today. Before its nifty name came about, Reebok was called J.W. Foster and Sons. Such a name did not exactly make one think of a leading global sportswear brand, and it took the grandson of the Foster originator looking through a South African wildlife almanac to find a new, catchier name: the Grey Rhebok.
Reebok
Samsung
Samsung’s CEO, Lee Byung-Chul, was thinking big when he was thinking of a name for his company, looking to the stars above for inspiration. Samsung was originally geared towards trading prior to changing its sights for an electronics target two decades later. Byung-Chul eventually settled on Samsung due to its Korean meaning: “Three Stars.” 3 is a lucky number to this nation, and the stellar connotation is taken from his celestial ambitions.
Samsung
Six Flags
It is incredible to see how some brilliant ideas evolve into even more astounding forms. Whenever you are developing a brand, however, it helps to keep this magical process concise. The “Six Flags Amusement Park” was on the right path when it came to its name after chopping up “Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington.” We understand that you were proud of your first park’s opening, Six Flags, but are happier that your marketing team came to its senses.
Six Flags
Skype
Here is another frequently used communication service that revolutionized how we reach out to each other in the 21st century. Despite having given way to other online video call software types in later years, Skype’s pioneering contribution can never be underappreciated. As for their first name? Try “Sky Peer-to-Peer” out for size! When this turned out to be too much to chew on, they tried out “Skyper,” but that had unfortunately already been taken. So, they just cut off the “r” at the end!
Skype
Starbucks
You are probably familiar with the coffee empire’s employees’ penchant for misspelling your name. Ironically, this would be how their brand name would come about. When a founder happened to be reading Moby Dick, his eye stopped on one of the character’s names, “Starbuck.” He added an “s” at the end of the famous hero’s name and the rest is history. Next time that someone misspells your name, or gets it completely wrong, you might want to save it!
Starbucks
Subway
It is incredible to track the progress of a brand over time, especially when a company starts with a concept with much potential and perfects it over time. When Dr. Peter Buck began making his soon-to-be-famous sandwiches within Bridgeport, Connecticut, he went with the name “Pere’s Super Submarine” for his restaurant. He then strayed off the path when he went for “Doctor’s Associate Inc.,” when blowing his own doctorate-possessing horn. Thankfully, he returned to a briefer version of his original brand name with Subway.
Subway
Toyota
While the Toyota brand name might not be anything but its founder’s family name, there was still much thought that went into its culturally significant form. Originally called “Kiichiro Toyoda,” there was a slight variation to this brand name when its leadership believed that “Toyota” would be a better fit. This name takes eight brush strokes to write in traditional Japanese calligraphy, eight also being the country’s lucky number. What a lucky number indeed!
Toyota
Yahoo!
Prior to Yahoo!’s rise to mainstream search engine success, its concept innocently floated about the heads of a pair of Stanford University Ph.D. students’ heads. While Jerry Yang and David Filo had mastered their search engine’s design, a fitting name eluded them. They first settled with “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” quite the mouthful! They then decided that an equally wordy name was better, albeit shortened to an acronym: “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” also known as Yahoo!
Yahoo
You may not have been able to fit Twitter’s initial brand name into the maximum tweet limit of 140 characters. When Twitter’s creator, Jack Dorsey, finally revealed the inspiration for its birdlike brand name, people were shocked: “short inconsequential bursts of information; chirps from birds.” Well, they soon changed it to “twttr” to better suit their previously SMS focused service before deciding to return the vowels to their brand name when they discovered that such a name had already been taken
