TRADE NAMES

Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.

AltaVista - Spanish for "high view".

Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)

Amstrad - Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc was founded by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar TRADing.

Apple - for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m.. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapprochable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, Sperry Rand, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different.

Atari - From the board game Go, "atari" is a Japanese word to describe a position where an opponent's stones are in danger of being captured. It is similar, though not identical, to "check" in chess.

Compaq - from "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object. Another explanation is Compatibility And Quality.

Epson - Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"

Google - the name started as a jokey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. The word was originally invented by a 9-year old boy Milton Sirotta, nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner in 1938 during a discussion of large numbers and exponential notation. After founders—Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page—presented their project to an angel investor, they received a check made out to 'Google Inc.'!

IBM - started by an ex employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects he called his company International Business Machines.

Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Lycos - from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.

Microsoft - coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the "ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.

Toshiba - was founded by the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).

Yahoo! - an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders sagar gupta and pankaj kumar selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos.

Automoción

Aston Martin - from the Aston Hill races (near Aston Clinton) where the company was founded, and the surname of Lionel Martin, the company's founder.

Audi - Latin translation of the German name 'Horch'. The founder August Horch left the company after 5 years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original 'Horch' company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is: "listen!".

Blaupunkt - Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkten. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

BMW - abbreviation of Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works)

Bultaco - Catalan company of motorcycles, dissapear in the 80's. Its name is an acronym of his founder Paco Bultó

Daewoo - the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.

Fiat - acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin)

Firestone - named after its founder, Harvey Firestone.

Ford Motor Company - named after its founder Henry Ford, who introduced automobile mass production in 1913.

Honda - from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda

Hyundai - connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.

Kawasaki - from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki

Lotus - Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Mercedes - This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.

Mitsubishi - name coined by founder Yataro Iwasaki in 1870. It means "three parallelepipeds" in Japanese. The three parallelepipeds also make up the company's logo.

Nissan - the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".

Rolls-Royce - In 1884 Frederick Henry Royce started an electrical and mechanical business, making his first car, a "Royce", in 1904. He was introduced to Charles Stewart Rolls on the 4^th of May of that year, and the pair entered into a partnership in which Royce would manufacture cars, to be sold exclusively by Rolls. A clause was added to the contract, stipulating the cars would be called "Rolls-Royce".

SAAB - founded in 1937 in Sweden as "Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget" (Swedish Aeroplane Company) abbreviated SAAB.

SEAT - Means Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Private Cars).

Suzuki - from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki

Toyota - from the founder's name Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.

Volkswagen - Translates into "people's car", which was a project of Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s and 40s; to produce a car which was affordable for the masses - the "Kraft-durch-Freude-Wagen" (or "Strength-Through-Joy car", from a nazi social organization) which later became known as the "Beetle")

Volvo - From the Latin word "volvo", which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

Fotografía

Canon - Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the companies first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

Casio - from the name of its founder, Kashio Tadao who had set up the company Kashio Seisakujo as a subcontractor factory.

Fuji - from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji

Kodak - Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a favourite 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. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

Konica - it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

Nikon - the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

Sanyo - The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is "三洋" (literally, "Three Oceans")

Petrolíferas

AMOCO - AMerican Oil COmpany - now part of BP

BP - formerly British Petroleum, now "BP" (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000).

Exxon - a name contrived by Esso (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in the early 70s to create a neutral but distinctive label for the company. Within days of announcement of the name, Exxon was being called the "double cross company " but this eventually subsided.

HP - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Shell - Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already succesfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.

Alimentación

Caprabo - Catalan supermarkets, founded by Carbó, Prats and Bonet.

Coca-Cola - Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola fruits used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.

Danone (Dannon in USA) - Isaac Clarassó in Barcelona made his first yoghourts with the nickname of his son Daniel

McDonald's - from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald's restaurant in 1940.

Nestlé - named after its founder, Henri Nestlé, who was born in Germany under the name "Nestle", which is German (actually, Swabian diminutive) for "bird's nest". The company logo is a bird's nest with a mother bird and two young.

Pepsi - Pepsi may have derived its name from pepsin, an enzyme produced in the mucosal lining of the stomach that acts to degrade protein. It is interesting to note that the name can be broken down into 'Pep', meaning 'energy and/or high spirits' and '¡Sí!', meaning 'Yes!' in Spanish.

Químicas

BASF - Initials of Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik. Anilin and Soda were their first products. Badisch refers to the location in the state of Baden, Germany (Black forest region).

Ciba Geigy - CIBA means Chemical Industry Basel, mergered with a Company named after its founder Johann Rudolf Geigy-Merian . Renamed to Novartis after a merger with Sandoz.

Colgate-Palmolive - formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York City in 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils used in its manufacture.

Hoechst - from the name of a district in Frankfurt

Otras

adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

AT&T - American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.

Hitachi - old place name, literally "sunrise"

IKEA- founded by Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden. The name IKEA comes from a clever acronym using the initials of the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was from a family farm called Elmtaryd, which was near the village of Agunnaryd. The acronym is for a Swedish phrase but it turns out to be the same in English, Ingvar Kamprad's Economical Alternative.

Imhotep Ltd - named after Imhotep (BC2686-2613), the first engineer. He built the step pyramid at Saqqara.

LEGO - combination of the Danish "leg godt", which means to "play well." Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but the company claims this is only a coincidence and the etymology of the word is entirely Danish. Years before the little plasticbrick was invented, LEGO manufactured wooden toys.

MGM - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Picture Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.

NCR Corporation - from National Cash Register. When owned by AT&T, the company's initials were (unofficially?) said to stand for AT&T's Network Computing Resource.

Nike - named for the Greek goddess of victory.

Nintendo - Nintendo is composed of 3 Japanese Kanji characters, Nin-ten-do the first two of which can be translated to "Heaven blesses hard work"; do is a common ending for any store.

Nokia - started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.

Psion - UK company named by its founder, South Africa-born Dr David Potter, from Potter Scientific Instruments Or Nothing.

Quark - named after an atomic particle. The term quark originates from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

RCA - from the initials Radio Corporation of America.

Samsung - meaning three stars in Korean

Siemens - founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.

Six Apart - company co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born 6 days apart (in September 1977).

Sony - from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang word used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster, "since we were sonny boys working in sound and vision", said Akio Morita. Sony was originally called Tokyo Tsoshiu Kogyo Kabushika Kaika. Sony was chosen as it could be pronounced easily in many languages

Subaru - from the Japanese name for the constellation known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Subaru was formed from a merger of seven other companies, and the constellation is featured on the company's logo.

Xerox - The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.