August 24, 2009

What's In A Company's Name?

Have you ever wondered what about the name of a certain company stands for? Sometimes I wonder about that myself. What really surprised me was when I found out that the name for the ice cream company, Häagen-Dazs, has no meaning at all. This Wikipedia page has a list of company name etymologies. Many of them are based on the names of the founders. Ten examples:

1) 7-Eleven – Convenience stores; renamed from "U-Tote'm" in 1946 to reflect their newly extended hours, 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m.

2) Adidas – from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

3) AltaVista – Spanish for "high view".

4) Verizon – a portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

5) CBS – Columbia Broadcasting System.

6) Sanyo – meaning three oceans in Japanese.

7) Coca-Cola – derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to make the name look better.

8) Daewoo – company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great House" or "Great Universe" in Korean.

9) Reebok – alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.

10) Nike – named for the Greek goddess of victory.

List Of Company Name Etymologies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies

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