Have you ever wondered how today’s famous companies got their names? Courtesy their success, the names of these companies are now familiar to us. However,most of them have hidden meaning behind these peculiar names.
Here’s tracking down how some of the world’s biggest technology companies got their names and what they mean.
The internet giant takes its name from ‘googol,’ the mathematical term for the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros.
Amazon
Jeff Bezos reportedly wanted a name that began with ‘A’ so it would appear near the top of an alphabetical list. He thought the world’s largest river was anapt name for what he hoped could be its biggest business.
Skype
Whittled down from the original name of ‘Sky Peer-to-Peer’ to ‘Skyper,’ the ‘r’ was eventually dropped to create the current name.
Yahoo
Yahoo is both an acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’ and an imaginary species described as rude, noisy, and violent in Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’
Sony
The name is derived from ‘sonus,’ the Latin word for sound and a slang expression ‘sonny boy,’ which in 1950s Japan described ‘smart, presentable young men.’
BlackBerry
This name was coined in 1999 because the keys on the device resembled the drupelets on the fruit.
Oracle
This name started as the code for a project that co-founders Larry Ellison and Bob Oats worked on for the CIA. It was a database that was supposed to be able to answer any question about anything.
Canon
Originally called ‘Kwanon’ for a Buddhist goddess, the company changed its name to Canon in 1935 to appeal to a worldwide audience.
Spotify
Co-founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon were brainstorming names when Ek misheard an idea as Spotify. Embarrassed by its randomness, they now say the namestems from the words “spot” and “identify.”
Credit: indiatimes.com