What’s in a name? Would telling someone to Backrub it sound just as sweet as telling them to Google it?
Here is a look at some original names of companies that you use their goods and services everyday.
Google – Backrub – Yep, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin begun work on their search engine, it wasn’t originally called Google. They went with the rather obscure Backrub, only changing it a year into development
Yahoo – Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web“.
Best Buy – Sound of Music – It was originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music. In 1983, it was rebranded under its current name with more emphasis placed on consumer electronics.
GoDaddy – Jomax Technologies – named after an old dirt road Parsons used to drive by on the way to work. Two years after founding the company, Parsons wanted to change the name to something more fun and memorable.
Sony – Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo – The name “Sony” was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word “sonus“, which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was “sonny“, a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy.
Amazon – Cadabra Inc – At first, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called his e-commerce company (at that point just a bookseller) Cadabra Inc. The name was a play off “abracadabra” to show how magical online shopping was. But after a lawyer misheard the name as “cadaver,” Bezos figured he should rebrand, according to Mashable. Relentless and Aard were also contenders.
Paypal – Confinity – Initially established in 1998 under the name Confinity, PayPal was founded by Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, Peter Theil and Ken Howery.
Ebay – AuctionWeb – The AuctionWeb was founded in California on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian-American computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as part of a larger personal site. One of the first items sold on AuctionWeb was a broken laser pointer for $14.83.
actually paypal was gonna be X. i thought up a lot of the stuff that is happening many years ago but elon musk actually does it. he is so stupid.
Right, that’s where Confinity and X merged.
Cool post, thx. I never knew Google was supposed to be backrub, I feel embarrassed.
Dell Computer started out as “PC’S UNLIMITED” …. it is funny seeing how they all started out and then modified their brand. Backrub? Never knew that. Thanks.