Backrub, Blue Ribbon, Cadabra: How Some Successful Companies Got Their Name Right On The 2nd Or 3rd Try by Pat Jennings

A friend close by shouted the word googolplex, which Page shortened to Googol—referring to a large number. With a quick misspelling, they stumbled into the name Google—short, fun, and easy to remember. As I reflected on that creative and counterintuitive brand name, I wondered how many other company names came to be.

The site Airbedandbreakfast.com was launched in the summer of 2008 with the idea of repeating the process everytime a big event or conference came to town. With over 32 years of experience in leading businesses through the technology industry, I have knowledge in building and managing exceptional IT teams. All theories aside, the name’s development was rather simple. During his fruitarian diet adventures, Steve Jobs took a trip to an apple farm. While in Kobe Japan he discovered the shoes made by Onitsuka Tiger.

Originally called AuctionWeb, the now famous auction site didn’t even have its own domain. The auction site was just one of four sites housed under Omidyar’s consulting business. Bezos also liked the name cadabra.com, as in abracadabra. He initially incorporated the company under that name in July of 1994.

The superior design and materials seemed to solve most of the issues Knight and Bowerman had with the shoes available at the time in the US. And they were less expensive than European brands such as Adidas. Parked a tractor trailer full of the damaged inventory and held a tornado sale featuring “best buys” on all the merchandise.

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1. They blurted names back and forth, trying to find something that represented the large amount of indexing that was being done.
2. The people who value the products the most usually can’t afford them.
3. I bet you didn’t know that video games date all the way back to the 1800s.
4. F Geisse (who also founded the Wholesale Club, Walmart’s inspiration) developed the concept of upscale discount retailing.
5. From there, the Dayton Company evolved into a thriving retail chain business.
6. Bandulu was started by Pat Peltier when he decided to start covering his favorite stained Nike garments with hand-stitched embroidery.

And the name that eventually stuck to the business came about due to several random, disconnected events. Could be your favorite movie character, boozy beverage, or even a misspelling of your lucky number, the important thing is that it represents you. Every business, band, or product has its own story, use your name to tell it. After some serious deliberation, Larry Page and Sergey Brin took to the whiteboard to solve their naming issue. They blurted names back and forth, trying to find something that represented the large amount of indexing that was being done.

Bandulu was started by Pat Peltier when he decided to start covering his favorite stained Nike garments with hand-stitched embroidery. After throwing together impressive amounts of thrifted and used clothing, Peltier came up with the name Bandulu—a Jamaican term for bootleg. Here, he took beat down threads and turned them into collector’s items that brought quality and craftsmanship to everyday athletic apparel. This Bandulu approach resonated with streetwear so well that he partnered with Nike to deliver a special edition Kyrie Irving 5 as well as a Boston Celtics Converse. What an impressionable brand name—I didn’t know it’s meaning but I was already stirring up a collection of ideas of what it could be and what it might mean. Off the cuff, my mind went to a musical artist—maybe some type of reggae band that all wore bandanas on stage.

The retail chain radiated like a bullseye across America and finally, in 2000, the Dayton-Hudston Corporation changed its name to Target Corporation. Today, Target pays homage to its roots with the Goodfellow & Co. merchandise line. Virgin Atlantic has been doing the name thing differently from the beginning. Right out of the gate, they went for it using the term Virgin to describe their brand. The idea was a tribute to Richard Branson’s other business endeavor Virgin Records, which flaunts one of the most famous musical artist client lists in human history.

Notable Amazon products and services

However, as Bezos and his team began to introduce Cadabara to potential investors, friends, and family, they quickly discovered an unexpected obstacle — pronunciation issues. Can you imagine a world where we say “Backrub it” instead of “Google it” when we want to look something up? If you know a bit about the history of Google, you may already know what Google’s first name was in 1996. Before it became Google, the initial search engine was called “BackRub.” This moniker was meant to represent how it analyzed the “back links” connecting the web. David Koller of Stanford University recounts the origins of Google here.

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1. Right out of the gate, they went for it using the term Virgin to describe their brand.
2. Here, he took beat down threads and turned them into collector’s items that brought quality and craftsmanship to everyday athletic apparel.
3. So I took to the great and powerful Google to find out how some iconic brands got their names.
4. In 1903, it became the Dayton Dry Goods Company, and then in 1910, it was shortened to the Dayton Company.
5. He constructed a six-story building on the newly purchased property and convinced the Reuben Simon Goodfellow Company to move a Goodfellows department store unit into it.

I bet you didn’t know that video games date all the way back to the 1800s. Now, there were no video games or televisions then but there were playing cards. These “hanafuda”, or flower cards, were made by Fusajiro Yamauchi as a simple entertainment game. Before Target became a household name along with its signature bullseye theme, it began as Goodfellow Dry Goods.

Target’s legacy began when the Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis burned down amid the Panic of 1893. In an effort to secure the revenue needed to rebuild, the congregation urged parishioner George Dayton to purchase the empty corner lot near the original church’s location. He constructed a six-story building on the newly purchased property and convinced the Reuben Simon Goodfellow Company to move a Goodfellows department store unit into it. By 1902, its owner retired and sold his portion to Dayton.

The Original Name of Amazon: From Cadabara to Success

Pepsi’s success burst forth from there; by 2010, the beverage was being bottled by over 300 companies across 24 states and was enjoyed worldwide. If you need some help on what to call your company or product, we’ve got your guide right here. If you’re in the mood for more marketing nuggets, sign up for our weekly Recipe that will be sure to fulfill your cravings. The internet juggernaut originally was called “BackRub” for its ability to analyze the Internet’s backlinks. Maybe it’s just me but this option should have never been brought to the table.

When it came time to design the boxes for their first product Johnson suggested they rename the company Nike. Google — When picking a name for your company there are several approaches you can use. You can use the literal approach and name the business after what you sell. Discount Tires — no confusion about what that business sells. Soon after its launch the auction section site took off and garnered some pretty serious media which of these companies was first named cadabra inc attention.

Also on This Day in History July 5

After complications with a trip to the British Virgin Islands, Branson decided to get his hands on a used Boeing 747 and start flying to the vacation destination himself. He quickly uncovered a business opportunity that he named Virgin Atlantic, which he found fitting as the brand was completely new to the aircraft and flight business. Nike — The global clothing manufacturer we know today as Nike started out in 1964 as a running shoe retailer named “Blue Ribbon Sports”. The company was established as a distributor for the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger (now known as Asics). The company was co-founded by Phil Knight and his college track coach Bill Bowerman. Both Knight and Bowerman agreed that the footwear available to track athletes was lacking to say the least.