A brand's name makes or breaks the brand; most of us would agree with that. Perhaps you've didn't known that many popular / household brand-names and/or companies started with names completely different from what they use now? We present a list of some of the biggest name changers you may not have known.


1. BackRub > Google

The world's number one search engine was created under the name "BackRub" as far back as 1996 by Larry Page and Serge Brin's but renamed to Google about two years later in 1998. Originating from the word 'googol,' which is a mathematical term. The use of this term was to reflect their plan of organizing an infinite amount of information on the web.

culled: www.palmchatnow.com

2. Quantum Computer Services > AOL


Quantum Computer Services was founded in 1985, but was renamed to America Online in October 1991 and in April 2006, America Online officially adopted AOL abbreviation exclusively.

3. Apple Computers > Apple, Inc.

The tech giant known as Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak as Apple Computers. Jobs announced in 2007 that the company would be dropping the word "Computer" to reflect their plan to dive into a wider field of consumer's electronics; to include "Apple TV, iPhone, iPod and The Mac. Only one of those is a computer.

4. Brad's Drink > Pepsi-Cola

Caleb Bradham, a North Carolina pharmacist in 1893, started experimenting with a few soft drink recipes. One of these was named after him: "Brad's Drink." Brad's Drink was renamed to Pepsi-Cola In 1898 and would become one of the world's most accepted brands.

5. Confinity > PayPal

Confinity was named from the word "confidence and infinity" but was initially founded as a Palm Pilot payment and cryptography company in 1998, a year later, it was renamed as PayPal after a Confinity engineer developed an online demo that allowed people to email payments. The company was acquired by eBay in July 2002 for $1.5 billion.

6. Research in Motion > Blackberry

Research in Motion was the first wireless data technology developer in North America and was founded in 1984. In January 2013, the company in a bid to revive the declining brand, changed its name to BlackBerry after the widely known smartphone device.

7. Blue Ribbon Sports > Nike

Nike, formally known as Blue Ribbon Sports originally operated as a distributor for Onitsuka Tiger (Japanese shoemaker). The company later took on the name Nike (the Greek goddess of victory).

8. Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo > Sony

A radio repair shop which was founded in 1946 under the name Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo and were Japan's first transistor radio was produced in 1955 and in 1960, the world's first transistor television. In 1958, This company's name was changed to Sony Corporation.

9. Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web > Yahoo

Jerry Yang and David Filo (Co-founders) were PhD students at Stanford at the time they created one of the world's largest search engines and named it "Jerry's Guide" but was soon renamed to Yahoo, which stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle."

10. Marafuku Company, Nintendo Playing Card Company > Nintendo

The playing cards company was created in 1889, Marafuku Company thou in 1951, it changed its name to Nintendo Playing Card Company. In 1963, the company changed its name to Nintendo and started manufacturing games.

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11. AuctionWeb > eBay

eBay was initially named AuctionWeb when it launched in 1995 – it was one of four sites housed under founder Pierre Omidyar's umbrella company called eBay Internet. The other three sites included a personal shipper site, a travel site, and a site about the Ebola virus. In 1997, Spurred by the media referring to AuctionWeb as eBay, the company made the name change official.

12. Firebird > Firefox

The company came to find that its initial name Firebird was also been used by another open source project. The name Firefox met all of the company's needs: "It's similar to Firebird. It's easy to remember. It sounds good. It's unique. We like it," the company said.

13. Stag Party > Playboy

The infamous Playboy magazine almost bore a different name. Hugh Hefner has said that he wanted to call his magazine Stag Party but changed it to Playboy as a last minute decision. Hefner said in an interview. One month before publishing, Hefner received a letter from Stag magazine saying that the name was an infringement on their title – he quickly changed the name to Playboy.

14. Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation > IBM

The company we now know as IBM was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) through a merger of the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and the Computing Scale Company. CTR was eventually changed to "International Business Machines" in 1924 and the abbreviation IBM shortly followed.

15. Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice, Il Giornale Coffee Company > Starbucks

In 1971, with a name inspired by Moby Dick, "Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice" was established. In 1983, Howard Schultz, Starbucks' CEO, left the company for a short period of time to start his own Italian-style coffeehouses under the name Il Giornale. Four years later, he purchased the original company and chose to bring back the Starbucks name.

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