The strange origin of the name of the world famous companies today

From Apple to Starbucks, the names of our companies still know there are surprising (and sometimes vague) histories behind them.

Pepsi - Coke.

BMW - Buick.

Rolex - Swatch.

All of the above pair of brands basically sell the same product, but some people choose the company's product instead of the other because they recognize the "familiar sound" name, or "the name" that brand will bring to them. For that reason, many startups have spent a lot of effort to choose a perfect name (and suffer unfortunate consequences when choosing the wrong one). But while the names of many companies today are chosen to help customers easily determine what the company sells , or show the company's spirit, or motto - or simply because the web address contains the That guy . hasn't bought anyone yet, so some well-known companies have an interesting and even controversial history behind their names. Below are a few examples.

Amazon

The company actually had two other names before Amazon was chosen.

Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world today, the most influential and profitable on the planet - a "tremendous" achievement when its lifespan is less than 25 years. Starting with selling books, Amazon today sells almost everything in the world. But if it started as a book-selling company, where did the name Amazon come from?

It is often rumored that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos chose the Amazon name because it started with an "A" , and in 1994, major search engines produced search results in tabular order. letters - means that Amazon will display near the top of the result. Bezos also announced that he gave the Amazon name because the Amazon River is the largest river in the world and he dreamed of turning his company into the world's largest bookstore.

But that's only half of the story. The company actually had two other names before Amazon was chosen. The first is Cadabra, Inc. - as in the mantra "abracadabra", it implies that online shopping is a very new and magical experience! However, Bezos abandoned the name after his lawyer thought it was "cadaver" - meaning "dead body".

Bezos then named his store "Relentless" and even registered a Relentless.com domain name (so far this domain is still redirecting to Amazon.com). However, many of his friends believe that the name makes his company seem aggressive and threatening.

Considering that Bezos is now the richest person in the world (with a fortune of $ 150 billion), the name "Amazon" is an unreasonable choice.

Apple

Apple is a far better name than any other name we can think of, Steve Wozniak said.

Today, the name "Apple" is synonymous with "computer" , but in 1976 when the company was founded, taking the name of a fruit to give a computer company was quite strange when the Computer companies at that time mostly had names that sounded technical. For example, Microsoft or IBM (International Business Machines). So where does the name Apple come from? Here's the story that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wrote in his book in 2006 called iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult :

"It was a few weeks after we agreed on a name for the company. I remember driving from Steve Airport from the airport along Highway 85. Steve just returned from Oregon, to a place where he was It's called a "apple orchard." It's like a town, Steve has proposed a name - Apple Computer. The first comment from my mouth is, "What about Apple Records?" is the name of the Beatles record label, both of us tried to find names that sounded more technical, but couldn't think of any more interesting names, Apple is a better name. very much more than any other name we can think of. "

That's the story that Steve Jobs confirmed with Walter Isaacson years later. Writing in his 2011 biography of Apple's founder, Isaacson said:

"In terms of naming Apple, [Jobs] said that he" is working on his vegetable diet. "He said he had just returned from an apple farm, and thought that name was It sounds "fun, lively, and not too scary" ".

And everything else has become history. The name of the company became so popular in computing that in June 2007, when Jobs appeared at Macworld Expo to announce the iPhone, he also announced that the company would remove the word "Computer" in the name. call her. "Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone. Only one of them is a computer. So we will change the name , " Jobs said.

Banana republic

Gap buy "Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company" and shorten the name to "Banana Republic".

In 1978, Mel and Patricia Ziegler founded a company called "Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company". The couple got the idea for the store after collecting all kinds of unique clothes from around the world during their business trips. They set up a store in California and sold hunting-themed items, with a hand-drawn catalog depicting adventures. In 1983, Gap acquired "Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company" and shortened the name to "Banana Republic". Today, the company has 600 stores worldwide.

So what makes the origin of this company's name so interesting? The truth is that its name has not changed. Many people feel that the name "Banana Republic" is meant to be offensive because it means "humiliating" small countries, usually in Africa or South America, where residents are mostly brown or skinned. Black, the same unstable political regime with corrupt government is running "puppet" leaders of foreign institutions, such as powerful US companies.

According to the Griots Republic, the term was first introduced by American author O. Henry in 1901 to describe Honduras and its neighbors, being exploited by American companies for their natural resources. . In this case, Honduras was taken advantage of by the United Fruit Company to plant bananas, resulting in many of the country's citizens dying. Today, the United Fruit Company is called Chiquita-yep - the company has groceries decorated with bananas throughout the United States.

Considering the negative and socially exploitative meanings of this name, it is quite surprising that even after 35 years Gap still does not change the name Banana Republic - and even more emphasis by Short cut the original name of the company. Mel Ziegler - the original founder of the company - said that he wished Gap would change that name. In 2012, he said: "I hope they rename it . this name has nothing to do with what the company originally did."

Starbucks

The truth is, Starbucks should have been named "Redhook".

Someone talks about coffee and you'll almost think of "Starbucks". But did you ever ask yourself exactly what "starbuck" is? The company was founded in 1971, certainly not named after any founder. So where does that name come from?

It is one of hundreds of names that founders Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker have considered. The truth is, Starbucks should have been named "Redhook" , Bowker recalls:

"At the time, I created a series of names, and the method I used was to take the list and pick up what I thought was promising, maybe 100 or more. Finally I I stopped at about six names, I was sitting at a coffee shop in First and Virginia Street, and I went over one by one, and Redhook appeared in front of me. "It's the name of an industrial park in Brooklyn. I tend to use names with 'k' in it. I like the sounds that pop out, the way it cuts through the air."

Another potential option is "Cargo House", which Bowker said "would be a terrible, terrible mistake". Later, Bowker's advertising partner agency mentioned that he thought the words beginning with the "st" sound might sound powerful. As Bowker remembers:

"Some people somehow came up with an old mining map of Cascades and Mount Rainier, and there was an old mining town called Starbo. As soon as I saw Starbo, I, of course, remembered Melville's first mate [named Starbuck] in Moby-Dick. But Moby-Dick is not directly related to Starbucks, it's just a coincidence that the name sounds pretty good. the time you will see people mention Pequod's first coffee-loving partner, and then someone told me, no, not that he likes coffee in the book, he likes coffee in the movie I don't even think Scarecrow Video has a copy of that movie. Moby-Dick has nothing to do with coffee as I know it. "

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