Just imagine if instead of "Googling" something, you "BackRubbed" it.
1. Go Daddy
You have to wonder whether Go Daddy would have succeeded had the company kept its original name: Jomax Technologies.
Within a couple of years, founder Bob Parsons and his team realized they needed a better moniker if they were ever to make it in the crowded online world. Days of brainstorming led nowhere, but then someone — in what we can only assume was a joke — suggested the name “Big Daddy.”
Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), BigDaddy.com was already taken. But GoDaddy.com, as luck would have it, was not.
[ See also: Curious Histories of Generic Domain Names ]
Apple
For a company that routinely touts its products as being magical, the origins of Apple’s name are actually quite ordinary. There are all sorts of stories out there about the meaning of Apple. Some say it was simply Steve Jobs’ favorite fruit. Others insist it was a nod to Jobs’ time working at an apple orchard (man, I bet that orchard had beautiful, wonderful, really revolutionary fruit). But they all offer relatively mundane explanations for the five-letter word that’s come to represent a whole way of life. According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs spouted out the name while the two were driving along Highway 85 outside of Palo Alto. Woz tells the tale in the 2004 book Apple Confidential 2.0:
Jobs was just back from the commune-type All-One Farm in Oregon and said to Woz, “I’ve got a great name: Apple Computer.” … Here’s what I really want to know: You think Steve wore jeans and a black turtleneck while working at the farm?
Yahoo
As the tech world’s most reliable source of ready-to-serve punchlines, it’s only fitting that Yahoo is called Yahoo. And the story of how it came to be known is just as entertaining as the company’s endless string of public gaffes.
Upon its inception, Yahoo actually had a different identity: “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” Not surprisingly, that name didn’t stick.
So Jerry and David — co-founders and appropriately titled “Chief Yahoos” Jerry Yang and David Filo — turned to the dictionary to find something shorter. They say they selected the word “yahoo” because they liked its definition: “rude, unsophisticated, and uncouth.”
According to Merriam-Webster, “yahoo” also means “stupid” and is synonymous with “dimwit,” “doofus,” and “chucklehead.” Who could possibly miss those prominent meanings, you might be wondering?
Why, only a real yahoo, of course.
