Brand-name origin stories attract myths because the true explanations are often too simple: a number, a river, a family farm, a book character. The best way to clean up the folklore is to go back to the companies’ own histories.
How they actually started
The company says “Google” was a play on googol, the mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros—a fit for the ambition to organize enormous amounts of information.
Amazon
Amazon says the name was chosen to evoke something vast and wide like the Amazon River, matching the original ambition to build an enormous book selection.
LEGO
Founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen combined the Danish words leg godt, meaning “play well.” The later discovery that “lego” can have a related Latin meaning was coincidence.
IKEA
I = Ingvar, K = Kamprad, E = Elmtaryd, the family farm, and A = Agunnaryd, the nearby village.
Starbucks
The company says it is named after Starbuck, the first mate in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The nautical association also fits the brand’s Seattle origins and siren logo.
Samsung
The Korean name means “three stars,” a name chosen by founder Lee Byung-chull to suggest greatness and endurance.
Nike
The sportswear company adopted the name of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, replacing its earlier Blue Ribbon Sports identity.
Adobe
The company name is tied to Adobe Creek in California, near cofounder John Warnock’s home—a local geographic name that became a global software brand.
Great names rarely begin as perfect marketing case studies
Some names are descriptive, some personal, some literary and some accidental. Their later fame makes the naming moment look more strategic in hindsight than it often was.