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Steve Taylore-Knowles

March 30, 2015 10:00

Word Stories: company names

Steve Taylore-Knowles looks at the stories behind the English language.

The current corporate battle between Apple (music) and Apple (computers) raises the interesting issue of company names. If you want to take the commercial world by storm, you need a good name for your business – one that denotes honesty, integrity, reliability. So, of course, most entrepreneurs start from their own name, paradoxical as that may seem in some cases. Black & Decker, Marks & Spencer, McDonald’s, Rolls-Royce, Grundig and Dell are all directly named after the founders, as are, more succinctly A&M Records (Alpert and Moss), B&Q (Block and Quayle) and C&A (Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer).

Some get a little more creative. Amstrad is an acronym formed from Alan Michael Sugar Trading (which was a surprise to me, but my wife looked at me scornfully when I announced it, since apparently her dad used to tell her that as a child every time they were stuck behind Sugar’s Rolls-Royce on the M25). Ikea is made from Ingvar Kamprad (founder), Elmtaryd (family farm) and Agunnaryd (nearby village), with a strange construction logic that has been the basis of their flat-pack instructions ever since.

Then there are the ones that aren’t based on the founder’s name at all. Starbucks is named after a character in Moby Dick. 7-Eleven is the opening times, although these days many of their stores are 24-hour. Carrefour is French for ‘crossroads’, by one of which the original store was located and Esso is the initials of Standard Oil.

And then, of course, there are the names that are created just to appeal to our prejudices as consumers, often involving foreign branding. Atari is an attacking position in the board game, go, and was chosen by an American company because it sounded Japanese (and so implied quality electronic goods). Another prime example of this marketing device is Häagen-Dasz. There never was a Mister, or Herr, Häagen, nor a Dasz. They aren’t even real names. The whole thing was made up, complete with umlaut, by Reuben Mattus in 1961 to sound vaguely European, the idea being that to American ears it smacks of old world charm and traditional craftsmanship.

Тема: Grammar & Vocabulary       Теги: Wordstory, Etymology

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