Popular brands have become a part of our everyday lives and the names given to them are used daily to describe products. We take a look at what some of the most frequently used brand names actually mean and where they came from.
Pepsi
The inventor of Pepsi, Caleb Davis Bradham, originally designed the drink as a medicine which he believed would aid digestion. Initially, it was entitled “Brad’s Drink” which comprised of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil and nutmeg.
Three years later, he renamed the product “Pepsi-Cola”, taken from the word dyspepsia, meaning indigestion.
Suggestions for the name Google came from a brainstorming session at Stanford University. The name “googolplex” was put forward but spelt incorrectly as “Googleplex” where the founder Larry Page discovered his company name, Google.
McDonald’s
Raymond Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman and founder of McDonald’s met two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald who ran a burger restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
The McDonald brothers bought several of Kroc’s multimixers and he was so impressed with their restaurant that he became their agent and years later bought the rights to the McDonald’s name.
ASOS
The online clothing retailer was originally founded as AsSeenOnScreen in 1999 with a matching domain however the abbreviation ASOS quickly caught on and the website name was shortened (However, AsSeenOnScreen.com will still redirect you to ASOS.com).
Amazon
Before the name Amazon, founder Jeff Bezos strongly considered Relentless however eventually settled on Amazon after the world’s biggest river. The first logo incorporated an image of the river and if you search Relentless.com today, you will be redirected to Amazon’s website.
Starbucks
The popular coffee shop was in fact named after a character from Moby-Dick. The idea to use Starbucks came after suggestions of using a word beginning with “st” which somehow led to the name of an old mining town called Starbo and eventually, Melville’s first mate in Moby-Dick, Starbucks.
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