Company names have strange origins

Famed entrepreneur Jeff Bezos had a big idea that needed a big name.

First, he came up with Cadabra, which was a play on abracadabra. But a lawyer heard it as cadaver and Bezos thought he shouldn’t have a brand that sounded like death. Then they tried relentless.

But that sounded mean. However, he bought that domain, and you can still get to Amazon typing in relentless.com. Finally, he settled on Amazon, which is the world’s biggest river and a word that means, well, big.

Cadillac — Established in 1902, the company was named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit in 1701.

Google — Google co-founder Larry Page originally thought of googolplex as a name for his website that would index massive amounts of data. A googolplex is one of the largest describable numbers. He shortened it to googol, but made a typo when searching for domains. He typed google instead and he liked it.

Lego — In 1935, Ole Kirk Kristiansen was looking for a name for his wooden toys. He combined two Danish words meaning play and good — Leg Godt — to come up with Lego. Serendipitously, it also means “I put together” in Latin, but Kristiansen didn’t know that.

Pepsi-Cola — Pharmacist Caleb Bradham concocted a drink to aid with digestion or dyspepsia and named it Pepsi.

Samsung — Founder Lee Byung-chull wanted his company to last as long as the stars in the sky. So he named it Three Stars, Samsung, in Korean.