From Nintendo to Coca Cola these are 25 famous company names and where they came from.
Pepsi
Named for the digestive enzyme pepsin.
Sony
From the Latin word “sonus” for sound. It was chosen because it can be easily pronounced in many languages.
Volkswagen
From the German for “people’s car”
Verizon
Combination of the Latin word “veritus” which means truth and horizon.
Starbucks
Named after a character in the book Moby Dick
Sharp
Named after the company’s first product, the ever sharp pencil.
Sega
Short for Service Games of Japan which originally imported pinball machines onto military bases in the country
Reebok
A stylized form of Rhebok which is an African antelope.
Geico
Shortened from Government Employees Insurance Company.
Nokia
Started as a wood pulp mill which later began producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia.
Nintendo
From the Japanese name Nintendou. Nin means something along the lines of entrusted and ten-dou means heaven.
Nabisco
Shortened from the original name, National Biscuit Company.
Lego
From the Danish “leg godt” which means to play well.
Kia
Roughly translates to “rising from Asia” in Korean.
IKEA
The initials of founder Ingvar Kamprad plus the initials of the place where he group up, Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.
IBM
After leaving National Cash Register Tom Watson Sr. decided to out do his former employer and named his company International Business Machines.
Ebay
Originally part of Echo Bay Technology Group the URL echobay.com was already taken by a mining company based out of Echo Bay, Nevada.
Duane Reade
The chain’s first warehouse was located between Duane and Reade Streets in Manhattan.
Comcast
Taken from the words “communication” and “broadcast”.
Coca Cola
Named for the the coca leaves and kola nuts originally used as flavoring.
Bridgestone
Named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. His last name literally means “bridge of stone”.
Audi
Taken from the Latin word for “horch”, founder August Horch’s name was already being used by his previous car manufacturing company.
AT&T
Stands for American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Adobe
Named for Adobe Creek which ran behind the house of founder John Wornock.
7-11
It changed from U-Tote’m in 1946 when new hours from 7am to 11pm went into effect
