You’re wearing your favorite Nike sneakers and your Adidas pants when you head to the mall to do some shopping at Zara. On the way you have a coffee with milk at Starbucks or decide to have lunch at McDonalds. Finally, nothing better than enjoying a wonderful Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
All these brands are basic in our lives. But do you have any idea of the true origin of their names? We explain it to you below:
1- Google owes its name to a typographical error
The name Google arose during a brainstorm at Stanford University when its founder, Larry Page, along with other students were considering different ideas for a massive online data search engine.
One of the suggestions was “googolplex“, one of the largest describable numbers that exist. Interestingly, the name ‘Google’ arose from a failed to spell the word by one of the students. Page would later register the company under that name.
2- McDonald’s is named after two brothers who ran a hamburger restaurant
Raymond Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, was smoothie machine salesman when he met the brothers Dick and Mac McDonaldwho ran a hamburger joint in San Bernardino, California.
The McDonald brothers bought several of Kroc’s Multimixers and he was so impressed with the restaurant that he decided to become their agent to establish franchises throughout the United States. Years later, Kroc finally bought the rights to the McDonald’s name.
3- Pepsi got its name from the medical term used for indigestion
Pepsi inventor Caleb Davis Bradham originally wanted to be a doctorbut a family crisis caused him to drop out of medical school and end up becoming a pharmacist.
His original invention, known as “Brad’s Drink«, was created from a mixture of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil and nutmeg. Three years later, Bradham renamed his drink, which I thought it eased digestionto “Pepsi-Cola”, a name taken from the word dyspepsiaended up used to refer to indigestion.
4- Zara came from Zorba
Zara founder Amancio Ortega originally named his company after seeing the 1964 film, “Zorba the Greek«. Although this name would not last long.
It just so happened that the first store he decided to open in 1975 was two blocks from a bar called Zorba. Ortega had already made the mold for the letters of his brand when the bar owner told him that it would be too confusing for both of them to share the same name.
Finally, Amancio finished rearranging the letters I had to obtain a word as familiar as possible and from there the name Zara was born.
5- A genius whispered the word ‘Rolex’ in the ear of its founder
The main objective of Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex, when naming his brand, was to achieve a word that could be said in any language.
“I tried to combine the letters of the alphabet in every possible way,” Wilsdorf said. This gave me a hundred names, but none of them seemed correct. One morning as he was riding on the top deck of a London bus, a genius whispered the word ‘Rolex’ in my ear«.
6- IKEA is not actually a Swedish word
Actually, IKEA is not a Swedish word at all. The founder Ingvar Kamprad chose the brand combining the initials of his own name (IK), with the first letters of the farm and the town where he grew up in southern Sweden: Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd.
7- Adidas is nothing more than the name of its founder
It turns out that the sportswear brand is named after its founder, Adolf Dasslerwho began making athletic shoes when he returned from serving in World War I.
The name combines his nicknameAddi, and the first three letters of your last name.
8- Amazon received its name from the largest river in the world
When Amazon was first launched in 1995, its founder, Jeff Bezos, had a different idea for his brand.
Bezos wanted to call his company “cadabra«. However, Amazon’s first lawyer, Todd Tarbert, managed to convince him that the name It sounded very similar to “Corpse”.
It is also said that Bezos tried to name him after relentless. In fact, if you visit Relentless.com today, you will be redirected to the Amazon website.
Finally, Bezos decided to call his company Amazon, a name dedicated to the largest river in the world.
9- Starbucks is named after a character in the novel Moby Dick
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Starbucks co-founder Gordon Bowker told the story of how they came up with the name of the global coffee retail giant. At first, they were going through a list of words beginning with “st” because they thought they sounded powerful.
“Someone brought a mining map of the Cascades and Mount Rainier. On it was an old mining town called Starbo. As soon as I saw Starbo, it came to my mind Melville’s first mate from the novel Moby Dick (named Starbuck).
10- Häagen-Dazs may look Danish, but it’s not
Reuben Mattus, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, named his ice cream company Häagen-Dazs as a way of pay tribute to denmark although the name doesn’t really mean anything.
«The only country that saved the Jews during World War II was Denmark, so I formed a totally fictitious Danish name and registered it,” Mattus said. “Häagen-Dazs means nothing, but it will turn heads, especially with the umlaut.”
Brands are so important that even in the world of seriessome of the most well-known and recognizable brands, were invented to give cohesion to the script, will you be able to recognize them?
Did you know the origin of any of these brands?
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