Ever wonder how famous tech companies got their name? What exactly does a huge river in South America have to do with selling merchandise via the web? (Amazon) And why would you let the whole world know you’ve never done this before? (Virgin) If thoughts like this have ever kept you awake at night, then Wikipedia has an article you should read.
(Keep in mind, this is Wikipedia, so some information may not be completely correct…)
“Skype” was originally “Sky Peer-to-Peer”, which evolved to “Skyper”, and then “Skype”.
“Adobe” was the name of the creek running behind co-founder John Warnock’s house.
“Amazon” 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 backstory: Amazon was chosen to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo, which listed entries alphabetically.)
My favorite back-story is the one about Amiga Corporation, original makers of the Amiga computer. (My all-time favorite computer from the past.)The original developers of the 16-bit Amiga computer chose the name, which means a ‘female friend’ in Spanish and Portuguese, because it sounded friendly, and because it came before rivals (Apple Inc. and Atari) alphabetically.
We all know the story behind Apple’s name, right? So, I won’t list it here. (For the 2 people among you who don’t know, Apple is in the list.)
This is great lunchtime or “up late at night and really need something that will put me to sleep” reading. Happy Friday!
