Company Name Etymologies

I'm sure you all know that famous brands and company names have stories behind it. Some never even cross our mind.

For a full list, visit :

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

I took some that I think pretty interesting :

20th Century Fox — film studio formed in 1935 following the merger of William Fox's Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures.

7-Eleven — this chain of convenience stores started in 1927 as U-Tote'm (so called because customers "toted" away their purchases). In 1946, U-Tote'm became 7-Eleven to reflect the stores' new, extended hours — 7am until 11pm, seven days a week. (The store hours are now different around the world. For example, the 7-Eleven stores in the USA, Hong Kong, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and Australia operate 24 hours a day.)

A&W — In 1919, Roy Allen set up a roadside stand to offer a new drink, root beer. He went into partnership with Frank Wright, and in 1922, they combined their initials to name the beverage A&W Root Beer.

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

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

Alfa Romeo — the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended.

Amazon.com — founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company 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 (as opposed to a bricks and mortar) bookstore. (Alternative: Amazon was chosen to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo, which listed entries alphabetically.)

Apple — for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. Apple wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time — which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract — in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh' ('Mac').

ASICS — an acronym for Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, which, translated from Latin, means "Healthy soul in a healthy body". Originally the citation is mens sana in corpore sano, but MSICS does not sound as good. (This is a shoe brand, just in case you don't know)

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 five 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: "hark!".

BenQ — Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life

Bridgestone — named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (石橋) means "stone bridge", or "bridge of stone".

Carrefour — chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets which started with a store near a crossroads (carrefour in French) in Annecy. (That's also why they make Carrefour stores near crossroads)

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

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.

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

Daihatsu — from Japanese Kanji, where Dai means "first" and Hatsu means "car".

DHL — named after its founders, Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn.

Eidos — named from a Greek word meaning "species". The company became well known for its Tomb Raider series of games.

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

Hitachi — old place name, literally "sunrise"

IKEA — A composite of the first letters in the Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

Kia Motors — The name "Kia" (起亞) roughly translates as "Rising from Asia" in Hanja.

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

Mazda Motor Corporation — the company was founded as Toyo Kogyo, started manufacturing Mazda brand cars in 1931, and changed its name to Mazda in 1984. The cars were named after Ahura Mazda, the chief deity of the Zoroastrians. It is also said that Mazda coincides with the anglicized pronunciation of the founder's name, Jujiro Matsuda.

Nero — Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome.

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

Nike — named for the Greek goddess of victory.

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

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

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.

Pepsi — named from the digestive enzyme pepsin.

Samsung — meaning three stars in Korean.

SEGA — Service Games of Japan was founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japan for use on American military bases.

Seiko — Seiko, now referred to in katakana as セイコー("seiko"), was originally named in kanji as 精工(also "seiko"). The two characters were taken from the phrase 「精巧で精密な時計の生産に成功する工場」, the company's vision which roughly translates to "a factory（工場:kojyo）that successfully（成功:seiko）produces（生産:seisan）exquisit（精巧:seiko）and precise（精密:seimitsu）watches." — According to Seiko's official company history, titled A Journey In Time: The Remarkable Story of Seiko (2003), Seiko is a Japanese word for "exquisite" or "minute" (both spelled 精巧), as well as a word for "success" (spelled 成功).

Shell — Royal Dutch/Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Dutch Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged their operations. 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 importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells.

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. The company was founded as Tokyo Tsoshiu Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946, and changed its name to Sony in 1958. 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.

Verizon — A portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

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

Yahoo! — a backronym 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 barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang jokingly considered themselves yahoos. It's also an interjection sometimes associated with United States Southerners' and Westerners' expression of joy, as alluded to in Yahoo.com commercials that ends with someone singing the word "yahoo".