Results: What's In A Name? Just Check It Out On "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web"
Published on 07/12/2018
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1.
1.
Yes, that's Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web, the former name of the search engine you are probably familiar with, Yahoo. Co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo were PhD students at Stanford in 1994, when they created what would become one of the world's largest search engines. "Jerry's Guide" was soon renamed to Yahoo, which stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." Probably a smart name change. Here are a few other name changes that were also probably smart moves. Which of these changes are you familiar with?
PayPal (Confinity) -- Initially founded as a Palm Pilot payment and cryptography company back in 1998, Confinity was named to "merge the words confidence and infinity." One year later, the company was renamed PayPal after an engineer developed an online demo that allowed people to email payments.
15%
312 votes
Playboy (Stag Party) -- The infamous Playboy magazine almost bore a different name. Hugh Hefner has said that he wanted to call his magazine Stag Party but changed it to Playboy as a last minute decision
12%
253 votes
Nintendo (Marafuku Company, Nintendo Playing Card Company) -- Created in 1889, the playing cards company Marafuku Company changed its name to Nintendo Playing Card Company in 1951. The company changed its name to Nintendo in 1963 and started manufacturing games in addition to playing cards.
10%
200 votes
Nike (Blue Ribbon Sports) -- Nike was formerly known as Blue Ribbon Sports and originally operated as a distributor for the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger. Initially founded with just $1,200 in the bank, the company later took on the name Nike – after the Greek goddess of victory.
8%
153 votes
Pepsi-Cola (Brad's Drink) -- In 1893, a North Carolina pharmacist named Caleb Bradham started experimenting with a few soft drink recipes. One of these bore his name: "Brad's Drink." In 1898 Brad's Drink was renamed to Pepsi-Cola and would become one of the world's most recognized brands
12%
235 votes
Google (BackRub) -- Back in 1996, the world's number one search engine was created under the name "BackRub." Creators Larry Page and Serge Brin's renamed their business and technology Google in 1998. It's "a play on the word 'googol,' a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros.
8%
169 votes
Best Buy (Sound of Music) -- Sound of Music, an electronics store specializing in high fidelity stereos, was founded in 1966. In 1981, Sound of Music's largest and most profitable store was hit by a tornado. The store then held a "Tornado Sale" of damaged and excess stock in the store's parking lot; the company advertised the sale by promising "best buys" on everything. Sound of Music made more money during this "best buy" four-day sale than it did in a typical month – thus, the store was renamed to Best Buy in 1983.
8%
157 votes
Knew all of these
4%
89 votes
None
65%
1332 votes
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Here are some surprising origins of products we all know -- how many were you familiar with?
Wonder Bread -- The balloons on the package are not just there for fun and color. Turns out the best-known bread brand, introduced in 1921, got its name when a Taggart Baking Company merchandising executive attended a balloon race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The colorful sight filled the exec with "wonder." He also happened to be on the team charged with naming the company's new bread.
12%
242 votes
Q-tips -- Back in the 1920s, after watching his wife apply cotton to toothpicks, Leo Gerstenzang developed a pre-made cotton swab for mothers to use in caring for their infants. The original name for the product, Baby Gays, was later changed to one that describes its use: "Q" for quality, "tips" for the cotton attached at either end.
14%
288 votes
Cheerios -- Back in the early 1940s, this iconic breakfast cereal was known as CheeriOats, but a trademark dispute with another oat cereal manufacturer prompted a name change in 1945. That paved the way for the Cheerios Kid and his sidekick Sue
14%
294 votes
Matchbox -- The original die-cast Matchbox cars and trucks, introduced in 1953, came in containers that were the same size and style as matchboxes.
16%
324 votes
Fanta -- During a trade embargo between the United States and Nazi Germany, Coca-Cola Deutschland factory director Max Keith challenged his team to use their "imagination" ("fantasie" in German) and find a way to sell their product domestically. One German salesman instantly expressed his enthusiasm for the idea: "Fanta!"
8%
157 votes
PEZ -- PEZ began as a breath mint company in Austria in 1927. The name comes from the German word for peppermint, "pfefferminz." Take the first, middle and last letters of "pfefferminz" and you've got one of the most fun candies ever concocted.
9%
180 votes
7-Eleven -- Founded in 1927, the convenience stores were originally called "Tote'm." Then, in 1946, the chain expanded its hours, staying open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.—and voila, 7-Eleven was born.
13%
262 votes
Knew all of these
5%
111 votes
Knew none
61%
1232 votes
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Here are how a few more companies and products came up with their names. How many did you know already?
Starbucks -- The company took the name of the chief mate in the book Moby-Dick: Starbuck, after considering "Cargo House" and "Pequod". They thought words beginning with "st" were powerful. The founders brainstormed a list of words beginning with "st" until they came across "Starbuck".
11%
232 votes
Amazon -- Jeff Bezos chose the name for two reasons -- first to be at the start of the alphabet when doing a search (back when searches were alphabetical) and also because he thought the name of the world's largest river was an apt name for what he hoped would be a big company
16%
327 votes
Virgin -- One of Richard Branson's colleagues famously suggested the name as "we're complete virgins at business"
8%
156 votes
WD-40 -- After 39 failures in the lab, the 40th turned up to be the one. So the popular water-displacing spray was called WD-40 for "water-displacement perfected on the 40th try".
14%
286 votes
Häagen-Dazs -- The ice cream was named as such to sound Danish, and "convey an aura of the old-world tradition and craftmanship". but has no meaning in the language. The name supposedly is a tribute to Denmark's exemplary treatment of its Jews during the Second World War, and included an outline map of Denmark on early labels.
11%
220 votes
Knew all of them
5%
102 votes
Knew none
63%
1286 votes
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